Dear Neighbor,
My number one priority is the safety of District residents and visitors. It's why I've worked every day as Chairwoman of the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety to lead legislative solutions including Secure DC, Peace DC, and the juvenile curfew, alongside the Mayor, the Attorney General, MPD, and my Council colleagues, to drive down violent crime to the lowest it's been in 30 years.
The work must continue to ensure safety is a reality for all, but that work is not accomplished by federal intervention in our local police department or dispatching hundreds of federal troops into our streets.
I and my colleagues issued a joint statement of the D.C. Council in response to President Trump’s announcement yesterday, which you can find below.
I want to be very clear: Chief Smith is still in charge of the Metropolitan Police Department and MPD still reports to Mayor Bowser. The language of the Executive Order authorizes the federal government to “request services” from MPD for a period of 30 days. MPD is still required to follow its own protocols, our District laws, and the Constitution. We will continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure that everyone in DC is safe.
Yours in service,
Brooke Pinto
CLICK PHOTO TO WATCH
DC Council Statement in Response to Presidential Announcement
WASHINGTON, DC -This is a manufactured intrusion on local authority. Violent crime in the District is at the lowest rates we’ve seen in 30 years. Federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department is unwarranted because there is no Federal emergency. Further, the National Guard has no public safety training or knowledge of local laws. The Guard’s role does not include investigating or solving crimes in the District. Calling out the National Guard is an unnecessary deployment with no real mission.
Public safety is built on trust, consistent enforcement, and community-based strategies. We must ensure that in our pursuit of safety, we do not create an atmosphere of surveillance, intimidation or unequal treatment under the law.
Our local police department is the best in the country, and it is our police officers who should be leading the efforts to keep our communities safe–not the National Guard. The President was unable to cite any evidence that our MPD is not able to do the job. Let’s stay focused.
Our local government regularly partners with the federal government. The federal government plays a role through the United States Attorney’s Office prosecuting violent crime, the Senate confirming judges to serve on our courts, the federal supervision agencies to follow up with people who are released on parole, and Congress passing a budget fix so that DC residents can spend their own tax dollars to pay our police and firefighters the wages they deserve. Taking over our police department and deploying hundreds of National Guard members is not the hard work of public safety – it is a show of force without impact.
It is our job to regularly look at our laws and ensure they are serving our residents’ interests. That’s what we did in 2024 when the Council came together to pass Secure DC, an omnibus with over 100 interventions to drive down crime. We did it again when the Council in June 2025 passed Peace DC legislation that puts the city on a path to more sustainable safety. And in the last two years where we have been laser focused on driving down crime, we have decreased violent crime by nearly 50% of what it was, yielding the lowest violent crime numbers our city has seen in 30 years.