Democrats are still in denial about Washington, DC’s crime problem, and decrying President Donald Trump’s intervention — but it’s time they face reality.
Over the last 12 days, as Trump federalized the DC police force and deployed federal officers on district streets, the city’s shockingly high murder rate screeched to a halt.
No homicides were recorded at all in that time frame, a sharp, statistically significant drop that’s far too large to dismiss as mere chance.
Leftists may resist the truth, but it’s simple: When you raise the risks of committing crime, crime falls.
Critics like DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb called Trump’s enforcement takeover “unnecessary,” while Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson predicted it would “inflame tensions” and increase crime.
“I walk around all the time . . . and I feel perfectly safe,” claimed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — who never travels without an armed security detail.
Schumer insists Democrats will deploy the filibuster next month to block Trump from extending his takeover beyond the 30 days allowed by law.
Yet DC’s crime rates (even using the reported numbers that local whistleblowers say are suspect) are shockingly high compared to the rest of the country.
In 2024, DC’s murder rate was 136% higher than that of Louisiana, the nation’s worst state, and a stunning 434% higher than the national state average.
Among our nation’s 25 most populous cities, DC had the worst murder rate — 28% higher than second-place Indianapolis and 179% higher than the group’s average.
But federal action is changing the picture: More officers on the streets, and prosecutors committed to charging criminals, appear to be making a difference.
The proof? For at least 12 straight days, through Sunday, Aug. 24, DC recorded zero homicides — not one.
Statistically, compared to the homicide rate during the first seven months of this year, the odds of that happening by chance are just 0.37%, or 1 in 272.
Compared to 2024 — when the district recorded 187 homicides, or nearly two a day — the odds shrink to 0.21%, or 1 in 478.
Few gamblers would take those odds in a bet.
Of course, these calculations rely on the district’s reported homicide numbers — which may be artificially low.
Retired DC homicide sergeant Carlos Bundy alleged in a 2021 lawsuit that the department was routinely “mis-categorizing deaths as something other than a homicide in order to keep the District’s homicide numbers down” — for example, mislabeling unnatural deaths as accidents or as “undetermined.”
The federal Department of Justice and congressional Republicans are investigating his and other whistleblowers’ reports.
If Bundy’s claims hold true, the real homicide decline this month is even larger than it seems — and the statistical significance even stronger.
Police visibility alone appears to be playing a major role in this powerful shift.
As of December, the DC police department had 1,340 patrol officers on a total force of about 3,400.
But of course, not all officers are at work simultaneously. If roughly a third of them are on duty at any given time, only 450 or so patrol officers and 1,130 officers of any type are available to serve a city of 720,000.
Trump’s addition of over 500 federal law enforcement officers and about 800 National Guard troops provided a sharp and immediate boost to the department’s street presence, calming mayhem dramatically.
Meanwhile, Trump’s US attorneys for DC, Ed Martin and later Jeanine Pirro, have both taken action to crack down on violence by launching federal prosecutions and pretrial detentions in gun-related crimes.
And who benefits most? The district’s black residents.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and other Democrats have been howling that Trump’s intervention is “stoking racial division” — but they’re ignoring the key fact that victims of violent crime in DC are overwhelmingly African American.
A National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform analysis of DC homicides between 2019 and 2021 found that about 96% of victims were black.
Black residents suffer disproportionately in other crime categories as well, and they’re hurt by the corollary effects of high crime as businesses shut down, jobs disappear, stores close their doors and property values take a hit.
On Sept. 10, Trump can seek congressional approval to extend his federalization of DC’s policing.
Schumer may well have the power to block that move, but if murder and violent crime remain this low under Trump’s experimental oversight, Democrats will have to explain to the district’s beleaguered residents why they chose thwarting Trump over saving black lives.
John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
