Authorities in Washington seized two stolen firearms and illegal drugs, just hours after President Trump ordered federal law enforcement officers to patrol the streets of the nation’s capital over the next week.
“Overnight, USPP officers and our federal partners collaborated to enforce EO 14252, Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful,” The U.S. Park Police’s Washington office said Friday morning in a post on the social platform X.
“Our teams made arrests for possession of two stolen firearms and illegal drugs removing these dangerous items from the community,” the officers added.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s Washington Field Division said the agency, along with its federal law enforcement partners, including FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Homeland Security Investigations team, are “out ensuring that the residents of the District of Columbia are safer this evening.”
Trump directed the increased presence of law enforcement officials, starting midnight Thursday, with the White House arguing that the city has “has been plagued by violent crime for far too long.”
The directive came shortly after the president said he was “considering” a federal takeover of the nation’s capital after the attack by teenagers on a former Department of Government Efficiency employee known as “Big Balls.”
Trump has criticized the city council and mayor Muriel Bowser in recent weeks, objecting to the city’s handling of homelessness and crime. He also pressed authorities to pass a law allowing teens 14 years or older to be sentenced as adults.
Violent crime for 2024 in D.C. is down 35 percent from 2023, the lowest rate in more than 30 years.
The president could temporarily take over D.C.’s police department, under the Home Rule Act, if he determines “special conditions of an emergency nature exist.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told NewsNation on Thursday that Washington is “more violent” than Baghdad, “parts” of Ethiopia and parts of “many of the most dangerous places in the world.”
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