This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 27 episode of “The Beat with Ari Melber.”
As Donald Trump pledges to expand his federal takeover of Washington, D.C., to other Democratic-run cities across America, new polling shows just how unpopular his purported crime crackdown really is. According to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday, 56% of Americans oppose the president’s decision to send National Guard troops to the nation’s capital.
Before Trump sent in federal troops, violent crime rates in D.C. were already at a 30-year low. While the president used the attempted carjacking of one of his staffers to help justify his crackdown, it's worth noting that the incident was swiftly handled by the D.C. Metropolitan police.
His justification for a federal law enforcement takeover is not supported by the statistics or the case that helped promote his dangerous abuse of power.
Inside D.C., Trump’s takeover is already taking a toll. While Mayor Muriel Bowser noted that the presence of additional federal law enforcement has resulted in fewer gun crimes, fewer homicides and a reduction in carjackings, she also said the surge has led to a “break in trust between police and community.”
I have worked extensively on the issue of police-community relations. I served as chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent oversight body responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct among New York City officers. Based on my experience, I can tell you, the presence of National Guard troops in D.C. is doing significant damage to the relationship between residents and their local law enforcement.
What the president is doing comes at a real cost to real people. When Trump first called up the National Guard and deployed ICE agents to D.C., a friend told me her son was frantically searching for his passport because he was so afraid, as a young Black man, to travel the city streets without it. That’s not something he had to worry about before when dealing with local police.
The reason Trump’s actions in Washington, D.C., are so unpopular is that people want the ability to have a say in policing in their communities. They want to voice their priorities, what they care most about, what they fear most and what should be done about it. Those decisions are often made at the local level by officials residents vote for, whether it’s for a state office or for a city office, not the federal government.
But Trump has bypassed that normal process. Instead, he is using federal forces to drive up fear and take control. And by doing so, he is causing great harm to the relationship between residents and their local law enforcement.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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