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WASHINGTON - Residents and tourists in the nation's capitol woke up to relatively few National Guard troops patrolling the streets Aug. 13 amid President Donald Trump's sweeping crackdown on crime and homelessness.
Trump mobilized 800 members of the guard, though not all have been deployed yet, and ordered the city's Metropolitan Police Department be brought under the control of the Justice Department.
"You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming weeks," Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said at an Aug. 12 news conference. "They will be strong. They will be tough."
Mayor Muriel Bowser's staff said on Aug. 12 that the largest part of the surge would happen overnight, and the city planned to keep the guardsmen near tourist hotspots like the national monuments. Commanders of the Guard's 273rd Military Police Company shared images on social media of armored Humvees parked next to the Washington Monument.
But National Guard troops were nowhere to be seen along the National Mall, where tourists walked from monument to monument and an increased police presence could be seen standing on sidewalks and in their squad cars.
Few National Guard troops seen in DC
A roaming group of federal agents and park police patrolled the area and at one point stopped in front of a homeless man and ordered him to move, which he did peacefully.A Park Police helicopter flew around the mall in low circles. There were no National Guard troops to be seen.
Even the area where a former DOGE staffer was assaulted while intervening in an unarmed carjacking - an example of violent crime in the city highlighted by the White House - was quiet with little law enforcement presence.
Area residents told USA TODAY that Trump’s actions were excessive and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Isaiah Walter, who was born and raised in Congress Heights, a majority-Black neighborhood in southeast D.C.
Violent crime is highest in the southeastern corner of the city known as Ward 8, which includes Congress Heights, Navy Yard and Anacostia, according to an interactive map on the city government’s website. But despite that, Walter said he has seen the city become safer over his lifetime, especially in the last several years following the pandemic.
“I don’t think it’s needed,” he said.
Though many residents have expressed disapproval, some have shown support for the president’s decision. While out on a walk with her child on Aug. 12, Rebecca Harkey told Reuters that crime had made her consider leaving the capital and that it was "very much an active fear" in her life.
What will the National Guard do?
The mission of 800 DC guard members will resemble how troops are helping immigration agents swarm the southern border, the Army has said.
According to the Army, which is responsible for deploying the District of Columbia National Guard, the troops will be tasked with administrative and logistical duties and supporting law enforcement with their "physical presence."
Bowser said she hopes her administration can spin Trump's deployment of the guardsmen into a positive for the city given that the department is understaffed by several hundred officers. Police officials are now approaching their deployment strategy to see "how the additional federal police officers can help in some areas," she said.
Trump also told reporters on Aug. 11 that his administration will be getting "rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces from all over the city."
"We're going to be removing homeless encampments from beautiful parks, which now, a lot of people can't walk on,” Trump said.
Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Michael Loria and Thao Nguyen, Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY; Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Few National Guard troops seen patrolling DC as residents oppose deployment
Reporting by N'dea Yancey-Bragg and Christopher Cann, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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