Meet the Casualties of Trump’s War on DC

Trump occupied the city. Residents are paying the price.

Donald Trump is trying to sell his militarized police crackdown in Washington as an effort to rid the city of violent crime. He’s deployed federal agents from the FBI, DHS, and Secret Service, seized control of DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, and even sent National Guard troops to patrol the city’s streets, saying the move is aimed at “restoring law and order in the District of Columbia.”

This is a transparent attempt to intimidate his critics and exert his own authority on the nation’s bluest city. If Trump wanted to fight crime in DC, like he says, there are plenty of steps his administration could actually take, including cleaning up the city’s federally controlled parks and providing more funding for city services—rather than cutting $1 billion from the DC budget.

Real people are getting hurt while Trump executes his power-grab. The District has a population of 700,000, and every day its residents are already feeling the negative impacts of life under occupation. Here are just some of the concrete ways that Trump’s crackdown is hurting Washingtonians:

1.) It’s killing the local economy.

There has been a heavy police presence in areas dense with bars and restaurants. Now, with the presence of federal agents conducting traffic checkpoints and harassing locals, business owners are facing steep declines in customer activity as people choose to stay home. That takes money directly out of business owners’ pockets, and threatens their ability to make ends meet—especially in an industry famous for having razor-thin margins.

Bar owner Mark Rutstein told The Advocate that the heavy police footprint has caused “customer flight,” which is “crippling small businesses.” Likewise, bar owner Dave Perruzza also told the outlet that his bar in the Adams Morgan neighborhood feels “like a desert,” causing him to lose as much as $7,000 in business on a single night. He said it’s “not sustainable.” The Washington Post reports that reservations plunged 31 percent year-over-year for a single day, with one restauranteur telling the paper “the city is dead.”

A third bar owner, Q Edwin, said he feared not being able to guarantee his customers’ safety outside of the building. He’s a naturalized US citizen, but said he now carries multiple IDs with him in case he’s stopped: “It’s bad for business, bad for tourism. Everybody is afraid. And when the workforce is afraid, when the community is afraid, the economy suffers.”

2.) Innocent people are living in fear.

A video shared with The Bulwark showed masked, badgeless agents violently arresting a delivery driver as pedestrians looked on on 14th Street. The assailants tased the man before putting him in handcuffs, and the video shows them loading him into an unmarked vehicle. When the bystanders asked for identification, the unidentified officers refused, cursed at them, and said “liberals” ruined the country. They left the scene without any further explanation.

Washingtonians have already seen a noticeable drop on the number of delivery drivers working in the city. One resident told NBC News he watched his own delivery driver being arrested by masked, unidentified agents, and said “I haven’t seen a driver anywhere in the last two days.” And a restaurant worker in Columbia Heights told the outlet that “the number of people who come to pick up orders has diminished.”

There are an estimated 1.4 million delivery drivers in the United States. With the mass adoption of food delivery apps, everybody has become accustomed to seeing them in restaurants and at people’s homes and apartment buildings. Now, in DC at least, those drivers have to live in fear that they could be stopped, assaulted, tased, and abducted—all without cause—by masked men who refuse to identify themselves and show base contempt for the people whom they’re meant to protect and serve.

3.) Good cops are being used as political pawns.

Daniel Hodges has been a Metropolitan Police Officer in DC for more than 10 years. He defended the Capitol on January 6 and was injured when he was crushed in a door amid some of the most brutal combat of that day. He’s currently suing the Capitol after its leadership refused to install a Congressionally mandated memorial to January 6 officers’ service. And for his day job, he’s a beat cop patrolling DC’s streets.

In response to Trump’s claim that police could now do “whatever the hell they want,” Officer Hodges said he would take the opportunity to go “on TV to talk about how his federalization of MPD and NG [National Guard] deployment is bad and dumb.” He joined MSNBC and said the move “doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.” Having also served in the Virginia National Guard for six years, he said: “This is not what they’re trained to do. Soldiers are trained to fight and win wars. We’re not in a war out here in DC.”

Michael Fanone, himself a 20-year MPD veteran who also defended the Capitol on January 6, agreed, writing: “Cops don’t sign up for this job and put the uniform on every day so they can be used as political pawns in Trump’s power games.” Fanone’s message to good cops who Trump is trying to enlist in his authoritarian power-play: “Quit.”

4.) Real crimes are going unsolved.

As both Officers Hodges and Fanone point out, DC isn’t free of problems. Like every major city, it has its share of crime, including violent crime. Thankfully, crime rates have been dropping precipitously in the city in recent years, notwithstanding Trump’s claim that “it has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World.” The Justice Department recently reported that violent crime in DC was at a 30-year low.

Crime in DC tends to be concentrated in certain hot spots. If Trump was serious about stopping crime, he’d focus his efforts in those areas where most of the muggings, thefts, and murders actually happen. Instead, we’re seeing the deployment of police and soldiers—many of them armed and kitted out as if headed into a war zone—to some of the most high-trafficked, tourist-friendly, and upscale parts of the city.

National Guard troops posed with tourists for selfies on the National Mall, where adult rec sports leagues host kickball games and people lounge on the grass. Officers walked foot patrol in Georgetown, one of the city’s most exclusive and high-rent neighborhoods, where shoppers can visit the Four Seasons’ five-star steakhouse or any number of high-end cupcake shops. These are the places where you can get a lot of visibility if you’re trying to use cops and soldiers as political props; but they’re not the places where most of the crime in DC is happening.

Trump occupied the capital for one reason: to strike fear in his enemies. He’s not worried about crime. But that doesn’t mean that real people aren’t getting hurt in his power games. Business owners, delivery drivers, residents, and cops themselves—these are the real victims of this authoritarian overreach.

The District, and the nation, deserve better.

Home of the Brave is a new initiative highlighting the harms of Donald Trump’s second term.