The White House said Monday that over 16,000 arrests have been made in Washington, D.C., due to President Donald Trump’s anti-crime campaign in the city.
The operation began one year ago Tuesday, when Trump signed an executive order creating the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which the administration said marked the “largest, most aggressive law enforcement collaboration ever assembled to confront crime in a major American city.” The initiative has led to the arrests of 35 homicide suspects and more than 100 known gang members, along with more than 3,200 narcotics arrests, nearly 2,000 illegal guns seized, and 25 missing children located and returned home, according to the Justice Department.
“President Trump has transformed our nation’s capital from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike. The president’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force have made more than 16,000 arrests, including murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers and other violent criminals,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a press release that praised the president for “refusing to accept violence as the status quo in Washington, D.C.”
Trump declared a crime emergency in the District of Columbia on Aug. 11, 2025, and ordered thousands of National Guard troops from across the country to the city that same month in a measure he said was aimed at boosting public safety. In doing so, he sidelined the city’s prized home rule status, including by temporarily federalizing the district’s police department.
Trump and his allies have argued that federal intervention is warranted to resolve crime issues and police staffing shortages that have dogged D.C. for years. Problems surged in 2020, after sweeping criminal justice reforms led by Capitol Hill’s Ward 6 Councilman Charles Allen, who spearheaded softened penalties for crimes. Some of the laws have since been rolled back, with crime metrics showing improvement in recent months.
The district’s Metropolitan Police Department has grappled with handling crime, particularly as officials warned of “dangerously low” staffing levels. The MPD is short about 900 officers, marking a 50-year low, with a force of around 3,140 officers, far short of the 4,000 needed. As of June, around 4,700 National Guard members from 19 states that are part of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force have been assisting police with patrolling the streets, according to the Pentagon. National Guard troops are set to remain in the city until the end of Trump’s term in January 2029.
“I’ve been on the Metropolitan Police Department for 20 years now and what I can tell you is the condition of this police department is the worst that I have ever seen it,” D.C. Police Union Chair Gregg Pemberton told Fox 5 DC last May, warning that officers are working around 2 million hours of overtime a year and are having pre-approved time off and vacations canceled due to staffing shortages.
The department has been further beleaguered by concerns that leaders manipulated crime statistics to boost its image.
DC MAYORAL DEBATE SEES CANDIDATES CLASH ON PUBLIC SAFETY, HOUSING, AND MORE
“Internal National Incident-Based Reporting System data reported to the FBI showed a 1.72% increase in violent crime for 2024, directly contradicting the D.C. government’s fabricated 28.32% decrease,” the D.C. Police Union wrote in May.
Several top-ranking police officials were terminated, and over a dozen MPD officers were placed on leave that month amid an internal investigation into the scandal. The alleged manipulation occurred under Pamela Smith’s tenure at MPD, before the police chief resigned in December amid swirling allegations that she oversaw and implemented a culture of corruption.