Trump Seizes Control of D.C. Police and Deploys 800 National Guard Troops

On August 11, 2025, President Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington, D.C., invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal direction and announcing the deployment of about 800 National Guard members to the city. Attorney General Pam Bondi was put in charge of MPD, and on August 14 she designated DEA Administrator Terry Cole an "emergency police commissioner." Section 740 caps presidential control of the force at 30 days absent an extension by Congress. District data showed violent crime down roughly 26% in 2025 from 2024 and at a 30-year low; Mayor Muriel Bowser called the takeover "unsettling and unprecedented."

Section 740 is a narrow provision written for emergencies, and using it to install a federal official atop a municipal police department tested how far a president may direct local law enforcement in a jurisdiction that lacks statehood. The deployment became the template the administration invoked weeks later when discussing Chicago, Baltimore and New York.

The District sued on August 15. At a hearing that day Judge Ana Reyes said the statute "would have no meaning at all if the president could just say 'we're taking over your police department,'" and Bondi rescinded the commissioner designation, recasting Cole as her designee to request police services while Chief Pamela Smith stayed in command. The judge issued no restraining order and let the parties negotiate.