Posted on 08/12/2025 1:07:52 PM PDT by Red Badger
President Donald Trump’s historic takeover of Washington, D.C.’s safety received an outpouring of support from new and longtime city residents, who told the Washington Reporter that Trump’s move is necessary for the continuing function of American government.
For far too many in America’s capital city, crime has become a haven for murderers, sexual assaulters, drug markets, and more — and despite the city having plenty of redeeming places and people, the risks are outweighing the rewards for many.
One female Hill staffer, who pays $3,000 a month for rent in Navy Yard, told the Reporter that she “saw someone get arrested the other day in my lobby at like 5:30pm. Someone also got shot in March and the blood puddle was left overnight and everyone saw it in the main lobby,” she said.
For the first time in years, Trump’s announcement has many in the city feeling hopeful; one GOP veteran told the Reporter that he felt safe walking around his neighborhood — where he and his wife were nearly shot in broad daylight — for the first time in three years. “I haven’t walked that way before tonight when I saw the police out in full force,” he said.
One D.C. denizen who has worked downtown for 30 years has seen the city’s crime ebb and flow — but he said that “it was very bad when I first got here but it's even worse now.”
“You couldn't pay me to go to Union Station any more,” he said. “Anyone who lives or works here knows the reality. Those that deny that reality are doing it only because of their irrational hatred of Trump.”
“The most dangerous place to be a woman in America is a Democrat-run city,” a female Hill staffer wrote to the Reporter. “Thank god!!!!!!” she added, describing D.C. as a scene out of Silence of the Lambs.
“I had a man video up my dress, another homeless man pulled off his pants and start masturbating at me on the metro, been literally chased down the block while a man yelled ‘suck my dick bitch’ at me and NO ONE HELPED ME. I live in Navy Yard so in every instance the police were completely incapable of helping. The one time they arrested someone — the man masturbating — they immediately let him go because there is no cash bail, and then he didn’t show up to court! I know D.C. is dangerous for everyone, but it is WOMEN who suffer the most. D.C. libs have sacrificed women on their alter to progressive crime policies.”
Despite the high- and low-profile instances of crime throughout the city, residents told the Reporter that local Democrats are indifferent to the suffering of their constituents.
“I live on 12th and M NW where a shooting just occurred,” one told the Reporter. “ I’ve been hounding the council and cops for two years about this exact block with the receipts to prove it. They haven’t done a single thing…I’ve got tons of examples of me calling the police, emailing the cops, the council. I'm calling at least once a week on the low end. Nothing has happened. I can't overemphasize enough how it is the same people for three-plus years. This isn't a situation where they get arrested and new people come back in their place; they simply never leave because the police don't arrest them.”
In one instance, the resident explained, “there was an incident two years ago where a drug dealer attempted to kill a Park Police officer. The officer thankfully lived. The thug was killed in the scuffle. I shit you not, there is now a shrine to the drug dealer on this exact block.”
The resident noted that while elected Democrats in the city are almost completely non-responsive, some of their constituent service staffers do at least show up.
A complete lack of accountability for criminals is something that is enabling criminals across the city.
One senior GOP staffer recounted to the Reporter how he “was robbed at gun point in Navy Yard in broad daylight at 2:30pm on a weekday. The city has done jack shit at this point to find the guy and it’s been over three months.”
“President Trump’s actions to liberate the Capitol are exactly what D.C. needs because the city has proven it is incapable of governing itself,” he continued. “Every D.C. resident complaining about what Trump is doing is openly admitting they’d prefer more Washingtonians get robbed or die. The level of delusion it takes to cling to failed politics over public safety is insane.”
One ten-year D.C. resident laid the blame squarely with the all-Democratic City Council. “President Trump wouldn’t have had to step in if the Democrats in charge of our city did their job,” she explained. “Gangs are brainwashing D.C. kids into violence with no consequences. It’s time to hold people, even kids, accountable for their actions.”
A newer transplant to D.C. moved during President Joe Biden’s tenure. She explained to the Reporter that she “was scared to death to drive in D.C. early in the morning or late at night. People would come up to my car at a red light. I repeatedly had to move my car in traffic to protect myself and my three-year-old son from the people physically coming up to our car.”
“I voted for exactly what President Trump is doing,” she said. “For far too long, Democrats have been the demise to our cities, from consent decrees that prohibit our law enforcement officers from doing their job, to placing public restrooms in the middle of downtowns. Why in the world would anyone want to live here and pay an ungodly amount of money in taxes, to feel constantly unsafe? How can cities retain talent without public safety? I walk to work and walk our child to school every day. There is litter everywhere. I had an encounter with my child on the other side of Union Station where I was stalked by a mentally ill homeless man. People had to get out of their cars to help me and my child was traumatized.”
“Thank the lord President Trump has the courage to act and to protect hardworking American people,” she concluded.
Another female Hill staffer told the Reporter that “it’s a frightening feeling to experience a lack of concern from D.C. leadership, cops, or even luxury apartment complex management for our safety.”
Fortunately, she added — “thank God we finally have a president who cares to protect law-abiding residents, including the thousands of young people who move to our nation’s capital to serve their states and communities. This is what I voted for!”
Trump’s moves are popular with residents across the political spectrum — despite their universal condemnation from elected Democrats, several of whom are victims of D.C.’s rampant crime.
One veteran of Democratic Party politics, who is a landlord near Capitol Hill, wrote to the Reporter that “as a property owner and a public safety dude I am happy we’re deporting the bums.”
“There isn’t a single person that I personally know of any political persuasion that is unhappy about the increased law enforcement presence in the neighborhood,” one longtime Navy Yard resident told the Reporter. “The only people upset about this are wealthy partisan Democrats who live nowhere near the destruction caused by their policies and who send their kids to private school. President Trump should ignore those voices. You can absolutely arrest your way out of this mess.”
One Republican, who noted that she “does not consider themselves a Trump fan,” wrote to the Reporter that “this is HUGE and makes me like him more, and I even left D.C. for Virginia! One of the greatest joys of moving to Virginia was that I could finally have packages delivered to my house instead of my downtown office because the porch thieves were so bad.”
While D.C.’s violence plagues residents of all political persuasions, it is almost exclusively Republicans who are willing to criticize the city’s government on the record.
“The chaos doesn’t stop at street level,” Kiersten Pels, the National Press Secretary for the Republican National Committee (RNC), told the Reporter. “Thanks to D.C.’s so-called ‘inclusionary housing’ laws, taxpayer-subsidized tenants are placed in some of the city’s most expensive buildings, many with no regard for rules, security, or community standards.”
“These high-end residences, once hallmarks of stability, now mirror the disorder outside their front doors as the same lawlessness migrates indoors,” Pels explained. “The taxpayer is funding a program that erodes the very communities it was meant to diversify. The first one I lived in was Onyx; they made the news because we had constant flooding from tenants who would pass out and leave their sink on — the entire floor would be filled with water, people shooting up drugs in the stairwell.”
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.), who lives in Navy Yard when she’s away from Oklahoma, painted a bleak scene of her neighborhood. Just feet from her apartment, a “member of Congress was carjacked, staffers have been assaulted and robbed, an Uber eats driver was killed by two 15-year old girls in a botched carjacking and retail stores closed because they were robbed so many times.”
“Believe me when I tell you, D.C. isn’t safe and the president was right to stop this chaos,” she continued, explaining that many of the city’s problems are caused by policies promoted by Democrats. “Did you know a juvenile is anyone under the age of 25 in D.C.? And if you’re a youth caught by local PD, they don’t charge you with any crimes, instead they call your parent(s) to pick you up; so you can do it again the next night.”
The concern is bicameral. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.) is vacating D.C. to run for Governor of Alabama, and he recently lamented how his staff have to walk to work and are constantly in danger.
As D.C. residents told the Reporter about their own firsthand experiences with crime in the city, a pattern emerged: there is no pattern to the crime.
“From my apartment, I watched a shooting happen at the Waterfront metro station earlier this year, seeing bystanders running and stumbling with their kids and dogs,” one resident said. “It was early afternoon, and it was the second shooting at the station that week in broad daylight.”
“It doesn’t always feel safe to commute to work,” he continued. “It’s to the point that if there isn’t a police officer in sight, I feel like I need to be seriously watching my surroundings.”
“I am so happy,” a female staffer wrote to the Reporter shortly after Trump’s announcement. “I was assaulted by a teen girl who's a part of the gang of hundreds of teens who hang out in that park in Navy Yard a few months ago.”
“D.C. police opened an investigation that led nowhere with 0 follow up,” she lamented. “This happened in Navy Yard at like 9pm in early May. It was one of those nights that large group of teens were partying and causing chaos in that park right next to Nats Park,” she continued — as if scenes like this are par for the course.
“I was getting on a scooter on the corner with my boyfriend to scooter home to Capitol Hill and one of the girls ran up behind me, pulled my hair yanking me off the scooter and it went flying. Many pedestrians saw and it was even caught on camera from one of the CVS cameras on that corner,” she continued. “She tried to steal my purse and was maniacally laughing since she got me to the ground. She ended up running off; cops and detective on the case did nothing after finding the footage. Couldn't be happier with Trump's action.”
Another female Hill staffer wrote to the Reporter that she and her fiancé were “assaulted by a homeless guy in the P Street/ DuPont Circle Call Your Mother Bagel last fall. 9 am on a Saturday morning, houseless neighbors choosing violence! Employees gave us cookies as a consolation gesture. Never went back.”
Her message to D.C’s criminals was simple: “GOOD RIDDANCE.”
Mark Steyn doesn’t live in DC and wouldn’t say that.
in DC?
Isn’t Steyn quoting someone else in that post?
I’m sure some did - the ones interviewed on Trump taking on the crime here seemed pleased with what he’s doing.
Yes. It’s someone’s X post.
All those testimonials seem to contradict the CBC and other foreign papers that claim crime rates have improved over the last few years.
“”””Crime prevention is not a true police function.”””
No. But criminal apprehension is. The cops are told to look the other way. The prosecutors ignore crime.
They aren’t doing anything to the criminals who are kids, and that needs to change-if there are no consequences to criminal behavior, the kid crime wave will not stop. That problem was referred to in the 1990’s song by Offspring-
“Hey man, you talking back to me?
Take him out-you gotta keep ‘em separated
Hey, man, you disrespecting me?
Take him out-you gotta keep ‘em separated
Hey, they don’t pay no mind,
If you’re under 18 you won’t be doing any time
Hey, come out and play”...
I’m sure that DC must have a juvenile detention facility-even tiny towns here have them. They need to incarcerate juvenile offenders, set fines/bail, make mom, dad or whomever is responsible for the brat pay till their wallet bursts into flames...
Trump and Jeanine Pirro have both addressed this.
Gosh, give them a little time, for goodness sake.
I’m not impatient, like some here-I’m sure AG Bondi called attention to the juvenile crime in her meeting with mayor Bowwow-she has dealt with that as AG in Florida. I’m just amazed that it is so out of hand in DC...
Naturally the Dems/media are in perfect lockstep with their talking point, which is that urban crime is at historic lows and Trump is inventing a fake crisis.
Excuse me! I (and to some extent Mark Steyn) was unclear. He qouted the idiot leftists’song, but gave it the title “music to get perforated by”.
The links would have made it clear, but this is the FR!
Sorry!
:-(
They vote for their misery!
District of Criminals!
Crime always “improves” when you curtail enforcement.
BTW, did you see where the DC Police Captain got sacked for falsifying the crime stats?
“Lie ‘til ya die.” It’s the leftist way.
“I wish these people would put their comments in writing and send them to the Mayor and DC City Council.”
It wouldn’t matter. They don’t care about the citizens — annoying little bugs on the windshield.. Their one and only focus is being in power.
Well, they have to get votes to stay in power.
I have felt that things are changing in the District, and eventually I think they will.
Democrats ruin every nice place they invade. You can list beautiful city after city in this country that they have ruined. Sometimes they ruin whole States. If anyone wants to resettle people, put the Democrats in the center of the places they’ve destroyed. They deserve to live there.
DC mayor & rest of demoncRATS are gnashing their teeth. They are so removed from reality. They live on this plane so far in the sky that reality is what they say it is. Ordinary every day people are finally getting their opinion across. Even the demoncRAT media has to report it.
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