Donald Trump is taking an ax to the roots of the Washington, D.C. “violent crime downturn” lie.
On Monday, Trump announced, with his customary excessive enthusiasm, that D.C.—which has higher violent crime rates than the cities of some third-world dictatorships—is already on its way to becoming a safe and secure town. The president federalized the capital’s police force and deployed National Guard troops in an effort to address the crime crisis that is ruining D.C.
In a post on Truth Social, the platform where he often communicates directly with the American people, Trump insisted, “D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!”
Democrats went ballistic after Trump placed the Washington, D.C., police under federal control, with one self-satirizing mob of lefty protestors protesting Trump’s crackdown mere blocks from where a man was shot to death. Talk about morbid irony.
Read Also: D.C. Man Shot to Death As Lefties Protest Crime Crackdown Nearby
On Truth Social, Trump added, “Until 4 days ago, Washington, D.C., was the most unsafe ‘city’ in the United States, and perhaps the World. Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to D.C. again, and soon, the beautification will begin!”
The Washington Free Beacon provided one example of how D.C. can rig their violent crime statistics:
In Washington, D.C., simple assault, a misdemeanor offense, is defined as "any attempt or effort, with force or violence, to do injury to the person of another." But the city's police department does not count it as a "violent crime." That designation is reserved for "assault with a dangerous weapon," a felony offense… During a 2020 city council hearing, two D.C. police officers blew the whistle on their superiors, accusing them of misreporting violent crimes as misdemeanors to make the nation’s capital appear safer on paper.
The Trump administration is now investigating.
When Trump originally announced his takeover of D.C. law enforcement, he stated, “The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on earth. Much higher.” He added, “The number of car thefts has doubled over the past five years, and the number of carjackings has more than tripled. Murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever. They say 25 years.”
Related: Trump Takes Over D.C. Police, Vows to Revolutionize ’Slums’
The president made a promise: “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it just like we did on our southern border.”
And it’s working. As my colleague Matt Margolis reported, citing D.C. police union data, “Carjackings, once a daily menace, plunged a stunning 83%. Violent crime overall dropped by 22%. Car theft was down 21%. Assaults with deadly weapons dipped by 6%. Even property crime ticked down. In total, crime fell by 8% in less than two weeks.”
And that’s what Americans voted for.
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