The US National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington, DC, have started carrying firearms, the military announced on Sunday.
According to the Joint Task Force-DC, service members began carrying their service-issued weapons on Saturday evening. The troops are authorized to use force “as a last resort and solely in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm,” the statement added.
Unnamed officials revealed that the National Guard would either carry M17 pistols or M4 rifles.
This development comes as President Donald Trump claimed, without evidence, that there is “NO CRIME AND NO MURDER IN DC!” one week after deploying troops to the capital. Trump also threatened to send troops to neighboring Baltimore, describing it as “out of control” and “crime-ridden.”
However, according to the Baltimore police department, there was a double-digit reduction in gun violence in July compared to the previous year.
The city has had 84 homicides so far this year, the fewest in more than 50 years, according to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Trump responded to an invitation from Maryland Governor Wes Moore to visit Baltimore and walk its streets, saying, “I would much prefer that he clean up this Crime disaster before I go there for a ‘walk’.”
The National Guard is a part-time force of reserve soldiers that can be called upon to respond to domestic emergencies, overseas combat missions, and “counter-drug efforts.” Their presence in Washington, DC, along with federal law enforcement officers, has been met with protests, fear, and confusion from residents.
At Trump’s request, some Republican governors have sent hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, DC, which the president has depicted as being in the grip of a crime wave, despite official data showing crime is down in the city.
JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, rejected Trump’s push to send troops into Chicago, saying, “Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicise Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families.”
Critics have called the federal takeover of the US capital a “manufactured crisis” aimed at political gain.
The deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, DC, also raises questions about the district’s status as a non-state entity.
Since Washington, DC, is not a state, the president has the power to take over policing in the capital for up to 30 days.
Many residents have long advocated for the district to become a state, but Democrats did not further pursue efforts to make it a state after passing a bill in favor of it through the then-Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in 2020.