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The local police union in Washington, D.C., wasted no time in welcoming President Donald Trump’s unprecedented federalization of the Metropolitan Police Department and the deployment of the National Guard to the district as part of a dubious crackdown on crime.
Trump — who has openly endorsed police violence in the past — literally vowed to let D.C. police officers do “whatever the hell they want” when he announced his plan to take control of the MPD. While federal data shows violent crime in D.C. reached a 30-year low before Trump took office, the rhetoric from the White House has portrayed D.C. as some kind of lawless hellscape.
The D.C. Police Union, despite caveats that “federal intervention must be a temporary measure,” is disturbingly gung-ho about its members receiving this unchecked power to execute what many critics see as a racist campaign against a largely Black city that could spread to others nationally.
Since Trump’s announcement, the union has aligned itself with the administration’s propaganda campaign on social media and on conservative media outlets, disputing the accuracy of the crime data and touting Trump’s takeover.
Echoing Trump, Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton claimed crime is out of control during a Fox News interview, a claim the union and the administration have boosted repeatedly via social media. Pemberton claimed that police accountability measures the city council passed following the George Floyd protests in 2020 are the true culprit behind the nonexistent crime surge. His union’s social media feed has also reposted claims from MAGA figures, like newly confirmed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, and from the union itself that crime isn’t truly down, as the data show.
Pemberton and the union also claimed last month that a police commander manipulated data to overstate the decline in crime, according to the local NBC affiliate, although the union hasn’t provided any public evidence to support the claim. The commander, who is under investigation, has denied the allegation.
But the D.C. police union, whose members are being given the opportunity to wield unchecked power over city residents, appears to be on board with Trump’s authoritarian power play.