WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to seize control of Washington, D.C.’s police department and deploy 800 National Guard troops has jolted the political landscape. Armed federal agents including, The National Guard, ICE and FBI have been seen patrolling the city.
At a news conference on Aug. 11, President Trump announced to the media, “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people.”
However, civil rights advocates and activists strongly disagree and argue that this move is about more than crime prevention, but it’s about dismantling the authority of Black mayors, who govern major U.S. cities with significant Black populations.
At Final Call presstime, D.C. sued to block the administration’s action. On Aug. 15 the federal government agreed to leave D.C.’s police chief in control of the department.
In a memo, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the District’s police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement “notwithstanding” city law, reported several media outlets.
On Aug. 11, President Trump invoked emergency powers under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973, which allows the president to federalize the D.C. police for 30 days. If he wants longer, he must take the measure to Congress for approval.
This move sidelined D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and placed Attorney General Bondi in charge of police operations. While the president claims the city is “out of control,” the data says otherwise—violent crime is at its lowest in 30 years.
On Aug. 12, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said of the National Guard troops, “You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week.” He added, “They will be strong. They will be tough.”
“Donald Trump is not concerned about the needs of District residents. Trump’s actions are rooted in racism, establishing an authoritarian regime, and White Nationalism. Over the last year, crime rates have significantly declined in the District, and the National Guard is not warranted.
These actions are self-serving and seek to distract residents from important constitutional and budgetary issues,” Carmel Henry, J.D., president of the NAACP Washington D.C., branch, said in a statement.
However, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Allah’s (God’s) Divine Servant, whose constant teaching and guidance over several decades, forewarned of a time when the U.S. military would be let loose in America’s cities.
“I say it again, the Government of the United States of America is planning an assault on the Black community, specifically aimed at our youth. And the conspiracy is so deep and so diabolical that many of you will not even believe that at this very moment that I am talking to you.
Your lives hang in the balance, whether you are living in Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, or any city in America. Black youth, particularly Black young men, are at risk today, and unknowingly, Brothers.
You are playing into the hands of your enemy, and he is using you to set up your destruction …,” Minister Farrakhan stated in a message delivered on June 25, 1989, titled, “Revealing the Conspiracy: Youth, Gangs, Violence and Drugs.”
“‘Could this be possible? Farrakhan, are you making this up?’” the Minister asked rhetorically during his message. He continued, stating, “Even though consciously you may not wish to agree with me, in your subconscious mind, you know something deeply wicked and diabolical is going on.”
Minister Farrakhan has also warned that unless Black people take control of their neighborhoods and work to make them safe and decent places to live, the government would resort to sending in federal troops and militarized police forces. He also warned of this consequence if political strife continued in the country.
“Civil unrest in the future will not be able to be handled by the police. The police will be supported by the National Guard and the National Guard will be supported by federal troops.
When this day arrives, and it will, the breakdown of law and order will be so great in America that it will be as the prophets foretold, ‘a time of trouble such as never was, since there was a nation even to that same time.’
Blood, as John the Revelator saw, ‘will be running in the streets even up to the horse’s bridle.’ This is a terrible prophecy, and it does not appear that it will be avoided or averted,” Minister Farrakhan said in the article, “Is America headed for Civil War,” published in The Final Call on August 31, 1994.
Targeting Black cities
In the aftermath of President Trump’s announcement, critics were swift to respond. In addition to Washington, D.C., the president also mentioned the possibility of taking similar actions in other cities, under the guise of addressing crime, including New York, Baltimore, Chicago, and Oakland, all cities with Black mayors.
“We’re not going to lose our cities over this. This will go further. We’re starting very strongly with D.C., and we’re going to clean it up real quick,” he said.
Dr. Wilmer Leon, author, radio host, and political scientist, told The Final Call, “I think there are a couple of facets to this whole process. I don’t think it’s an accident that there’s an African American female mayor in Los Angeles, where Trump first sent the troops in.
I don’t think it’s an accident that the mayor of Washington, D.C., is an African American female, and D.C. is the only city in this country not tied to a state. I think we’re looking at a similar circumstance in Oakland, his next threat.”
Dr. Leon thinks President Trump is appealing to his supporters “as a simple way to test the limits of potentially declaring martial law,” and is “testing the waters” to see how “far the courts may let him go.”
Mayor Bowser called the president’s actions “unprecedented” and legally questionable. Mayor Bowser emphasized that violent crime is decreasing in the capital and stressed the limits of her city’s authority under federal control.
Speaking at a recent town hall with community leaders, Mayor Bowser said, “This is a time where community needs to jump in, and we all need to do what we can in our space, in our lane, to protect our city … and to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule, and get to the other side of this guy, and make sure we elect a Democratic house so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push.”
D.C. City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson responded to the takeover with the following: “This is a manufactured intrusion on local authority. Violent crime in the District is at the lowest rates we’ve seen in 30 years. Federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department is unwarranted because there is no Federal emergency.
Further, the National Guard has no public safety training or knowledge of local laws. The Guard’s role does not include investigating or solving crimes in the District. Calling out the National Guard is an unnecessary deployment with no real mission.”
“It’s very notable that each and every one of the cities called out by the president has a Black mayor,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told CNN. He told viewers that his city has seen a 50-year low in homicides. He credited the city’s success to a holistic public policy that goes beyond a strictly law-and-order approach.
Mayor Scott added, “We know that having the military there is not the way to do it. The way to drive down violence in cities has been proven. Mayors across the country have brought together law enforcement, the legal community, the actual community, community violence intervention work to reduce violence across this country and cities to lows that we have not seen in decades.”
The D.C. takeover comes two months after the National Guard was sent to Los Angeles to assist ICE agents. LA Mayor Karen Bass told MSNBC that the deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and the federalization of its police force are an attempt to intimidate local officials and the public.
“I don’t know what’s going on there, but I imagine that they are not suffering in the despair that he described in his press conference, that, in any way, would warrant the use of federal officials in this manner,” she said.
Targeting Black people
Even though, the Aug. 15 move by the Trump administration that says the control of the District’s police will remain under its police chief, federal troops are remaining.
Under President Trump’s original directive, in addition to the National Guard, the Metropolitan Police Department will be reinforced with personnel from various federal agencies, such as the Border Patrol, FBI, DEA, and U.S. Park Police. D.C. Police Chief Pam Smith told reporters, “We’re here to work together with our federal partners, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
The D.C. Police Union, according to news reports, has welcomed the federal help, claiming it would help with staffing shortages.
For D.C.’s Black residents, what is happening is causing concern.
“This is a nightmare,” D.C. activist Luci Murphy told The Final Call. “It’s like unreal. You know, it’s sending troops into a city based on a lie. Crime rates have been going down. We don’t need this. We don’t need more policing. We need more jobs, education, and recreation.”
Paul Crowder is a D.C. native, husband, and father. “The city already has a curfew in various areas to prevent youth crime. Now we have the National Guard. It seems like overkill to me, especially since crime is going down in the city.”
Dr. Leon questioned what President Trump means when he talks about D.C crime. “When you read the text of his D.C. explanation, he talks about lawlessness, he talks about thugs, and he talks about criminals,”
He said. Dr. Leon compared that definition to what the president’s actions were when thousands of mostly White people stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, after the presidential election.
“He pardoned 1,500 of those people on the first day that he was sworn into office. I think there’s some inconsistency, if not hypocrisy, between who he considers criminals, what he considers lawlessness, and how he chooses to address it.”
Throughout America’s history, the National Guard has previously been summoned to urban areas under Democratic and Republican administrations. During the Civil Rights movement, the National Guard was deployed to Watts and Detroit in the aftermath of uprisings by Black people as a response to police violence.
In 1992, the National Guard was deployed in Los Angeles in the aftermath of the acquittal of several White police officers in the brutal beating of Rodney King.
In 2015, 1,700 Maryland National Guard members patrolled Baltimore’s streets alongside 400 state police officers, deployed in response to uprisings triggered by outrage over Freddie Gray’s severe injuries in police custody, which led to his death.
Similarly, the Missouri National Guard was deployed in Ferguson, Missouri, after protests erupted following the shooting and killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown Jr. by a White police officer.
At one point, more than 17,000 National Guard troops were deployed across 23 cities following the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis Police custody, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and others.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has and is a Divine Servant and has repeatedly issued warnings on what has and is to come. During President Trump’s first term in office, Minister Farrakhan cautioned him and Black people about the consequences of sending military troops to America’s cities.
During Minister Farrakhan’s 2017 Saviours’ Day message, “Have No Fear For The Future: The Future Is Ours,” he cautioned then-President Trump about sending military troops to Chicago, under then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“You told Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, ‘Clean it up, or I will,’ and you threatened my young brothers. Now let me tell you something: My brothers are in bad shape … and I have warned all of you;
I told you that the army was coming. I told you to get your act together, and clean up your act because they are coming with a mind to slaughter us,” Minister Farrakhan said.
“I have said it not just for a year, but for three decades I have been warning you about the government of America planning a war not only with a Muslim overseas, but with Black people and the Nation of Islam in America. Have I not done that?” he added.