I spent 11 years in the Guard & Reserve (April 1981-May 1992), so I definitely have some thoughts on President Trump’s increasing politically motivated misuse of National Guard (NG) personnel for a “crime emergency” in the District of Columbia that simply does not exist.
When I arrived in the DC area in 1988 to go to work for the CIA, the number of murders in the District that year was nearly 400. The next year, there were well over 400. The year after (1991), at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, there were nearly 500 murders. As of two weeks ago, the DC homicide rate was just under 100. Over the last 30-plus years, the District has been transformed economically. Crime remains an issue, as it is in every major city in America. But DC is not remotely the lawless hellhole Trump claims it is.
The same cannot be said for Jackson, Mississippi, which has one of the highest murder rates in the nation…and is one of the states from which NG troops are being deployed to DC.
Trump’s takeover of DC’s police force is the kind of statist insanity that the pre-Trump Republican Party would’ve railed against. But his subversion of the DC government—made possible by the Home Rule Act—will not solve DC’s existing crime problems. And his decision to enlist the support of Trump loyalist governors in South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, and Mississippi (and likely more in the coming weeks and months) to send their NG elements to DC represents an overt, unprecedented politicization of the NG in this country.
The normal peacetime mission of the NG in any state or territory is to be available to help with actual emergencies that affect that state, usually of the natural disaster variety. The California NG has often played a role in helping contain the wildfires that have plagued that state for years now. Those are totally appropriate missions for state NGs to perform.
When I was a young enlisted soldier in the Missouri NG in 1983, my transportation unit was called up to provide anti-looting and commercial business security in the wake of a tornado that had swept through part of my hometown of Springfield. Our unit leadership was so concerned that there not be a shooting incident involving any member of our unit that we deployed without bolts in our M‑16s (i.e., the rifles couldn’t fire). We could still have used the weapons as de facto clubs, I guess, but the main point of our deployment was providing physical security for an area of the city that had just been hit by a major tornado. We had no lawful arrest or detention authority; that was the job of the Springfield Police Department.
Contrast that with the regime’s flip-flop on whether NG troops deployed to DC would be armed—earlier this week, it was announced they would not be armed. Then the story changed to “some might be armed.” Putting young NG personnel on DC’s streets—none of whom likely know the first thing about civilian criminal law—in a politically volatile environment is inviting a Kent State-like tragedy.
On my way into DC today, I had a roughly 15-minute chat with two young NG members. To protect their identities, I’m not going to reveal the state or unit they’re with or their genders. After I introduced myself, I asked these NG members what kind of legal training (if any) they’d received prior to their deployment to the District. They spoke in extremely general terms, and it was clear they were uncomfortable going into details about the training. What they did say was that if they were in doubt about their actions, their orders were to “lean on their leadership” and the civilian police on hand and nearby. The NG personnel I spoke with were simply standing around, providing “a presence” (their words) to “help the American people.” The latter formulation is consistent with the Trump regime’s propaganda line about the massive, multi-state NG deployment to the nation’s capital.
What Trump is doing now has nothing to do with “crime control” because the DC murder and crime rate is the lowest it’s been in literally decades. These out-of-state NG call-ups—from Red states in particular—are simply designed to intimidate elected Democrats in major metropolitan areas under the guise of “fighting crime” and alleged immigration enforcement.
Trump’s use of Title 32 authority to do this is a clear misuse of the statute, and it is clearly designed to get around the Posse Comitatus Act so he can use military personnel under the control of Trump loyalist governors for what can only be truthfully characterized as de facto political repression ops.
