A safer capital for every family

What happens to a rowdy classroom when a second adult quietly walks in and stands at the back? Nobody gets a lecture. Nobody gets sent to the office. The spitballs just stop, because everyone knows someone is watching.

In August 2025, President Trump sent that second adult to Washington, D.C. He put the city's police under federal direction, called up the National Guard and launched a task force led by the U.S. Marshals. By early September 2026, more than 3,100 personnel from 28 agencies had made 17,056 arrests, including 35 for homicide and 1,702 for gun crimes, and had recovered more than 2,000 illegal firearms. The White House's Oct. 1 update put arrests near 18,000.

The number that matters most is the hardest one to fudge: homicides. By the Metropolitan Police Department's own count, the city recorded 187 homicides in 2024 and 127 in 2025, a 32% drop. As of Oct. 9, 2026, the count stood at 78, down 29% from 110 at the same point last year. Car thefts are down 43% this year, and total crime is down 14%.

Picking the right yardstick

The White House says homicides are down more than half from Biden-era levels. That holds if the yardstick is 2023, when the city recorded 274, the most in the 20-year table MPD publishes. It is a stretch if the yardstick is 2024, because homicides had already fallen by nearly a third before the President returned. I'd rather use the harder yardstick, and the record still holds: 2025 beat 2024 by nearly a third, and 2026 is beating 2025.

The best argument against all this comes from MPD's own page. Assaults with a dangerous weapon are up 40% this year, which pushes the city's total violent-crime count up 11%. Some residents also say, fairly, that crime was already falling before the Guard arrived.

Grant both. Then add one complication. In May, MPD put 13 officers on leave and removed top officials amid allegations that crime reports had been shaded to make the city look safer, and both House Oversight and the D.C. inspector general opened inquiries. If some assaults used to be written down as something smaller, honest bookkeeping alone would make the 2026 count jump. Homicides do not have that problem, and they have fallen two years running.

Scott Morgan, a D.C. resident, told the Washington Examiner, “It does feel a lot safer.” A delivery driver in the same story said crime was already going down and the troops were not needed. Both can be true. The second adult does not have to start the calm to help keep it.

The second adult is still standing at the back of the room. You can check the class's progress yourself on MPD's “District Crime Data at a Glance” page, which posts the year-to-date numbers, and watch for the inspector general's report on how assaults were counted.