Get Ready for More National Guard Troops in D.C.
Trump's $1.5 million-a-day "Summer Surge" is expensive political theater that misses the real crime hot spots.
Frank Figliuzzi hosts The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square. He is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
As President Trump intends to surge an additional 1,500 national guard troops into the nation’s Capitol this summer, a new comprehensive study reveals his strategy didn’t have the impact on crime that he claims.
Trump’s summer of soldiers will result in a total army of 5,000 troops patrolling Washington, D.C., with minimal proof that the cost, methodology, and troubling precedent is worth the effort. To the contrary, the data and related analysis by the nonpartisan Niskanen Center think tank shows the ongoing deployments have barely made a dent in violent crime.
Trump’s on-going troop deployment did seem to reduce petty property crimes by less than a quarter, but crime in Washington, including robberies, had already hit a 30-year low, and was already on a downward trend before Trump even came back into office. This raises serious doubts about how much the petty crime decline could be attributed to the deployment. Importantly, the study concluded there was virtually no impact on violence, and certainly not the kind of cost-benefit analysis that merits doubling down on the number of men and women in camouflage on the streets of our capital city.
The feds say they will use the additional troops to help battle criminal activity, violence, and trafficking of illegal drugs and guns, yet evidence to date shows no connection between guard patrols and those systemic challenges. Authorities also assert the troops will help deal with the growing challenge of large, disorderly teen gatherings or “take-overs”; a scenario that could produce regrettable, even ominous, news clips of armed uniformed warfighters chasing unruly kids around parking lots.
Trump first deployed the National Guard to D.C. last August, as part of his Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which he’s replicated in New Orleans and Memphis and wants to expand to other cities. The president did this by declaring a a public safety emergency via executive order, temporarily taking control of D.C. law enforcement, and becoming the first president to invoke the D.C. Home Rule Act – declaring his decision, “liberation day.” Now, according to DOJ officials, this summer surge is only the beginning of Guard deployments.