6 events in Passaic County with a date

National Guard members arrive in DC

Mayor: Troops will focus on support roles

By: Trevor Hughes
Michael Loria
and Thao Nguyen

..... Residents and tourists in the nation's capitol woke up to relately few National Guard troops patrolling the streets August 13 [2025] amid President Donald Trump's sweeping crackdown on crime and homelessness.
..... Trump mobilized 800 members of the guard and ordered the city's Metropolitan Police Department be brought under the control of the justice Department. White House officials said between 100 and 200 troops would provide administrative and logistical support to local law enforcement at any given time, along with a "physical presence" in the city.
..... "You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming weeks," Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in an August 12 [2025] news conference. "They will be strong. they will be tough."
..... Mayor Muriel Bowser's staff said on August 12 [2025] that the largest part of the surge would happen overnight, and the city planed to keep the guardsmen near tourist hotspots like the national monuments. Commanders of the Guard's 273rd Military Police Company shared images on social media of armored Humvees parked next to the Washington Monument.
..... But National Guard troops were nowhere to be seen along the National Mall, where tourist walked from monument to monument and an increased police presence could be seen standing on sidewalks and in their square cars.
..... A roaming group of federal agents and park police patrolled the area and at one point stopped in front of a homeless man and ordered him to move, which he did peacefully.
..... A Park Police helicopter flew around the mall in low circles. There were no Nation la guard troops to be seen.
..... Even the area where a former DOGE staffer was assaulted while intervening in an unarmed carjacking - an example of violent crime in the city highlighted by the White House - was quite with little law enforcement presence.

Mayor fields questions

..... At a virtual sit-down with city residents on August 12, [2025] Bowser said Trump called up the guard for non-law enforcement purposes, indicating they would work in a support role to assist law enforcement officers.
..... Bowswer sought to reassure residents, saying that while violent crime remains a problem in the city, the National Guard deployment was unnecessary.
..... "Violent crime in DC is at its lowest level in 30 years. We had an unacceptable spike in 2023, so we changed our laws and strategies," she said at a televised community meeting on August 12. [2025] "Now crime levels are not only down from 2023, but from before the pandemic. Our tactics are working, and we aren't taking our foot off the gas."
..... Among comments form residents were concerns that the National Guard will do nothing to stop the influx of guns from nearby states into the city and fears that troops roaming the streets will scare older adults and teenagers into staying inside.
..... The three-term mayor stood by previous statements that the Metropolitan Police Department has overseen an unprecedented reduction in violent crime and hopes her administration can spin Trump's deployment of the guardsmen into a positive for the city, considering the department is understaffed by several hundred officers.
..... "Just imagine if we had the number of MPD officers that we should have, if we were at 3,800 instance of 3,100," Bowser said. Police officials are now approaching their deployment strategy to see "how the additional federal police officers can help in some areas."
..... Kevin Donahue, Bowser's city administrator, said DC would aim to keep the guardsmen near national monuments where people are accustomed to seeing armed forces and would try to have Metro police present wherever the troops are deployed to give residents a more familiar face.
..... Staff said the largest part of the surge, potentially hundreds of federal troops, would happen overnight when many residents are indoors.

Mixed reactions across DC

..... Earlier on August 12, [2025] The New York Times reported that members of the National Guard were seen in various areas across DC, including near the Washington Monument. The troops appeared on the streets and in their military vehicles.
..... In Anacostia, a historic and predominantly Black neighborhood in southeast DC, residents told the Times that they opposed Trump's decision to deploy the military and to place local police under federal control.
..... "I think it;s very horrible," Kyvin Battle, 57, told the newspaper. "Because a lot of us who are innocent are going to get caught in the middle of all this."
..... Residents noted that the crime levels in the city did not justify the federalization of the city's police force, according to the Times and Reuters. Rodney Miller, who had lived in the DC area for 50 years, told Reuters that he questioned the need for national Guard troops given lower crime levels now. though many residents have expressed disapproval, some have shown support for the president's decision. While out on a walk with her child on August 12, [2025] Rebecca Harkey told Reuters that crime had made her consider leaving the capital.

'Every American should be deeply concerned'

..... Trump's decision to deploy the military drew shape condemnation from Democrats across the country, who said the move raises civil-liberties concerns at a time when crime in DC is dropping.
..... Charles Allen, a District council member overseeing the neighbors closest to the Capitol, called the deployment "extreme, outrageous, and dangerous."
..... "National Guard soldiers are trained fro warfare & natural disasters, not for community policing," Allen said in a lengthy thread on social media. "every American should be deeply concerned with what they're witnessing today. [08/12/2025]
..... Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's longtime non-voting representative in Congress, said Trump based his federal takeover on a "fiction he's pushed since the campaign trail.

..... Contributing: Reuters

HOME