I’m a DC police officer. Here’s what Trump’s takeover is really about.

The federal occupation is terrorizing citizens, wasting taxpayer dollars, and actively making local law enforcement’s jobs harder.

Photo Credit: Philip Yabut / Shutterstock.com, Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, Barry Rubin

I’m a current police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C., speaking in my personal capacity. In addition to over a decade of service, I responded to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and became the face of the police response after being filmed getting beaten and crushed while keeping insurrectionists at bay. I was hopeful, then, that the country would have a reckoning for those who organized such an uprising, but over four years later I’m heartbroken to see just how wrong I was.

On August 11, 2025, Donald Trump invoked a never-before-used aspect of the Home Rule Act—the law that grants the District of Columbia the authority to govern itself (as opposed to the federal government). Trump declared a special emergency in DC, which under Section 740(a) of the Act requires the DC Mayor to provide “such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary and appropriate” for a maximum of 30 days, unless extended by Congress.

The alleged emergency? The prevalence of crime in the city.

In addition to the declaration of this emergency, Trump has seen fit to flood our streets with federal law enforcement officers from seemingly every agency. This includes the horrific “mystery agents” who don masks to hide their identity and wear no agency insignia, no name tapes, no badges, driving unmarked cars—nothing to identify to the public who they are and that they are legally sworn law enforcement officers instead of, say, thugs cosplaying as police so they can kidnap non-white people with impunity.

Finally, Trump has activated the National Guard and sent them to the streets of DC. To do what, I’m not entirely certain, and it would seem no one else is either.

While crime does exist in DC, there’s nothing about it at present that would constitute an “emergency,” particularly since Trump already had this power during his first term and saw no such need for a declaration. In 2020, DC had a homicide rate much higher than the current year is on track for, and despite the Black Lives Matter protests and riots, the National Guard was never deployed for the purpose of fighting regular crime.

In 2021, when my colleagues and I were getting beaten defending the Capitol from an armed mob intent on thwarting the will of the people and stopping the transfer of power, Trump watched his people assault the Capitol on TV and made no effort to send us military assistance. Now that crime is on the decline he decides there is a “crime emergency” and pulls this stunt. As a police officer in DC, I’m all for actual, sustainable help in keeping the streets safe, but it is obvious that’s not what this is about.

First of all there’s the tumultuous chain of command. Trump publicly appointed Pam Bondi to be in charge of the newly-federalized MPD, who then tried to make the emergency powers permanent by fiat. Under pressure from the courts she backed down and our Chief supposedly remains in command, but the threat remains. Legal mischief aside, does anyone really believe Bondi has some piercing insight into the deployment of law enforcement resources in the city that our own seasoned local leadership does not? The rank-and-file have been told that nothing has changed for us, and in my experience patrol units are being deployed in exactly the same way that we were before the federalization order, so what’s the point?

Secondly, there is the National Guard presence. I served in the Virginia National Guard for six years, and as a veteran I can tell you that soldiers are trained to close with and destroy the enemy. Soldiers are trained to fight and win wars. Military Police notwithstanding, soldiers are not trained for law enforcement roles. They are not trained to conduct traffic stops, they are not trained in deescalation, crisis intervention, and DC code. They do not have the legal authority to conduct routine stops or make arrests. Aside from very narrow roles such as blocking and directing traffic or riot control, National Guard members are not trained, equipped, or authorized to be of any great help in combating crime. They know this and the administration knows this, but they ordered the Guard to come anyway.

So what do they do? They stand around. They drive through the streets. They walk (not patrol, as they can’t take police action should they observe a crime) around the Mall, and they sleep. It seems the complete lack of action on the part of the Guard bothered even Trump’s administration, so recently the Guard has been seen picking up trash and mulching. Now I’ve been out of the Army for a few years, so maybe there’s a new Landscaping MOS, but I doubt it. And all of this is estimated to cost the country $1 million a day. These soldiers are being kept away from their regular jobs and their families just to be used as political props with no effect on crime, which is offensive to me as a veteran, as a police officer, and as a US citizen.

Finally there are the federal officers. Hundreds of federal officers from over a dozen agencies are now operating in the city. They’ve been spotted hanging out at metro stops, conducting vehicle checkpoints, and working in concert with specific MPD units. Insofar as they might help us catch genuine threats to society, I am happy for whatever help they have to offer. However it would be foolish to pretend that is the only thing happening here.

Firstly, there was nothing preventing Trump from allocating these federal resources to DC prior to the federalization order. He could have done so at any time, but only did it as part of his broader crackdown on the city, suggesting this isn’t actually about crime prevention.

Secondly, there is the opportunity cost associated with this deployment. By and large these federal officers are investigators; street work is not their speciality. Time they spend conducting vehicle checkpoints—things local police can do on their own—is time that they should be spending doing things only they can do. Long-term investigations into white collar crime, public corruption cases, international smuggling rings, drug and human trafficking, foreign and domestic terrorism prevention—these are all vitally important law enforcement tasks that they should be doing, but aren’t.

These are tasks almost anyone would agree are incredibly important, except apparently Kash Patel and his peers. In his brief time as FBI Director, Patel has shuttered the Office of Internal Auditing and the Public Corruption Squad, and cut staffing in the domestic terrorism section. There are plans to eliminate antitrust, civil, and environmental field offices from the DEA and ATF. It’s not known if the agents patrolling the District’s streets could do these important tasks even if they wanted to.

Lastly there is the immigration enforcement factor. ICE is but one of the agencies out in force in DC, however all federal efforts feed into their ongoing mission of detaining and trafficking as many non-white people as possible. This has created an atmosphere of dread for many of our Hispanic residents who are now afraid to go to work, lest they be abducted under the color of law. Nightlife and restaurants are suffering, tourism has plummeted, and this forced federalization is wrecking the trust MPD has worked to build with the community it polices.

I can’t say how this will end, but I can say what I will do in the meantime. I won’t be intimidated into silence about the failures and dangers posed to the country by the federal police takeover of the city. I will quit my job before I ever help Trump’s goons kidnap some random person for the crime of not being white enough.

And if I’m on duty and come across a group of masked, armed individuals with no visibly identifying markers of law enforcement attempting to force someone into an unmarked car, I will treat it as an armed kidnapping until the abductors are able to prove they have the legal authority to arrest someone.

Nothing is guaranteed in this world and recent history should firmly illustrate that includes our country and way of life. Law and order are vital to any civilization, but Trump has somehow managed to convince a fraction of the country he is working toward these goals while actually subverting the Constitution at every opportunity. Washington DC, by its nature, is the local government where the administration holds the most sway, and so we are the testing ground for Trump’s incursions into local control.

It is imperative we understand the totality of what Trump is trying to accomplish with his deployment of the military and federal law enforcement to unwilling cities and states, or we risk surrendering the last vestiges of self-governance to a man who has made no bones about his desire to subsume our federalist way of life.

Daniel Hodges is a Metropolitan Police Officer in Washington DC. He is speaking in this essay in his personal capacity.