DC Councilman Wants National Guard to Help Control Homicide and Crime Rate
WASHINGTON — A member of the District of Columbia Council is calling on the National Guard to help police confront a surge in homicides and other crimes this year.
In the first six days of August, 16 people were shot and killed in the nation’s capital, contributing to the total of 161 for the year.
This year is on pace for the highest homicide rate in 20 years.
D.C. Councilmember Trayon White said during a press conference Tuesday near the site of one of the killings, “We are clearly in a war zone.”
He added in a statement, “We must declare an emergency regarding the crime and violence in our neighborhoods and act urgently. It may be time to call on the National Guard to protect the children and innocent people that are losing their lives to this senselessness.”
White’s comments represent an escalation of the shrill anti-crime rhetoric that took root this year in Washington, D.C., and spread to nationwide criticism.
In March, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee called in local officials to berate them about how they handle crime.
“Our nation’s capital has deteriorated and declined,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee’s chairman. “D.C. officials have not carried out their responsibility to serve the citizens.”
The congressmen also were reacting to a rewrite of the local criminal code approved by the D.C. Council. It reduced maximum prison sentences for some violent crimes in a move federal lawmakers said was too soft on criminals.
They exercised their federal oversight of the District of Columbia to veto the criminal code reform bill.
In response, the D.C. Council approved a different emergency crime bill last month as a temporary measure. It makes firing a gun in public a felony and gives judges broader discretion to detain suspects in violent crimes before their trials.
“Like in any emergency, we have to act like it and we have to act urgently to address the problem we’re seeing,” said Brooke Pinto, the D.C. Council member who wrote the emergency bill.
White’s suggestion of National Guard intervention appears to be a step too far even among his colleagues who agree the D.C. crime rate is an emergency.
Mayor Muriel Bowser said National Guard troops would be inappropriate because they are not trained as law enforcement personnel.
“They don’t know our local laws,” Bowser said in a television interview. “They don’t typically make local arrests. What we have used the National Guard for, to perform a very critical public safety function, has been in more traffic posts and we use traffic posts very statically.”
She was joined in dismissing calls for the National Guard by D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.
“When the National Guard has been called out, it’s typically been for crowd control and mass demonstrations or things like the Jan. 6 insurrection,” Mendelsson told WJLA-TV. “Calling the National Guard suggests that the Army is better than the police for fighting local crime. We should be focusing on giving MPD the resources they need.”
The head of the D.C. National Guard said his troops stand ready to help the local community but only if the U.S. secretary of Defense orders them into action.
Earlier this year, the Mexican government put out a warning to its citizens to be watchful if they travel to Washington to avoid becoming crime victims.
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