CNN published a story today confirming that crime in Washington, DC is down thanks to the federal takeover and the surge of resources to the city. But CNN takes pains to try to balance this good news with bad news. The story is headlined "DC crime falls, but tourism takes a hit too as Trump’s federal surge reaches one-month mark."
One month after President Donald Trump’s administration effectively took over Washington, DC’s police department, surging federal law enforcement and troops across the capital, crime in the city is down, homeless encampments have been cleared, and hundreds of people accused of being in the US illegally have been detained.
But those changes have come at a price. Tourism numbers have declined, some restaurants in the District are hurting for customers, an already maxed-out court system has been pushed closer to the brink with new cases, and millions of dollars have been spent daily on National Guard deployments.
Getting to the main point of the takeover, CNN's own analysis shows crime is down throughout the city. There was a real effort early on to paint the takeover as mostly impacting the National Mall and a few wealthy areas of the city and doing little or nothing about the high crime areas. It turns out that was wrong.
In the first three weeks of Trump’s takeover of DC policing, reported violent crime incidents dropped by 10% from the previous three-week period, while reported property crime incidents fell by 25%, according to public data released by the Metropolitan Police Department.
Overall, reported crime decreased in all seven of DC’s police districts, and the decline doesn’t appear to be concentrated only in wealthy and tourist-heavy neighborhoods or less affluent areas of the city.
The crime trends varied by type of offense. There were three homicides in the first three weeks of the takeover, compared to eight in the previous three weeks, for a decline of more than 60%. Reported incidents of burglary and theft from automobiles dropped by more than 40%, while motor vehicle theft was down about 35% and robbery was down about 19%.
Any city would be thrilled to report these numbers as a year over year decline. A 60% decline in murders! A 40% decline in thefts from cars! But in this case, the decline isn't annual but is based on one month of concentrated effort. It's a remarkable result. And yet, CNN has to find a dark cloud somewhere and they've settled on several metrics including impacted courts.
The uptick in charges has already added strain to the district’s public defender’s office charged with representing individuals who can’t afford an attorney.
“We’re exhausted,” federal public defense attorney Elizabeth Mullin told Faruqui during the hearing last week. “We don’t have the resources of the US Attorney’s office.”
Pity the poor public defenders who are overworked on account of all the arrests. Obviously, this is a problem that is inevitable any time you make a push to reduce crime. You could probably find a lot of normal people who would see exhausted public defenders as a sign of progress, but CNN frames it as a downside to declining crime. Similarly, CNN reports tourism is down.
The surge of federal forces, immigration agents and National Guard troops appears to have negatively affected tourism and restaurants in DC, though industry sources cautioned that it’s too early to measure the total cost in lost revenue...
“The visuals are checkpoints, police everywhere, and tanks rolling down the street — which is not our reality,” said Elliott Ferguson, CEO of Destination DC, a private nonprofit that promotes tourism in DC and coordinates closely with the mayor’s office. “We have been dealing with concerns from the leisure market about the atmosphere in DC. That has been the biggest issue.”
We're really reaching here. Sure, tourism is important to any big city and maybe the optics aren't encouraging people to travel to DC right now. But it's literally been one month. Is a decline in tourism really on the same level as a 60% decline in murders? Ultimately, it seems likely a lower rate of crime and cleaner streets could set DC up for a surge in tourism to come. CNN doesn't consider that possibility. They are doing their best to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
This is clearly a good news story for the Trump administration which promised to crackdown on crime and succeeded. The resistance media is doing its very best to find ways to spin this to make it less of a success than it is.
The one month takeover ends this Wednesday. After that, the DC self-rule charter says Trump has to get approval from congress to continue his federalization of DC police. So we'll have to wait and see what happens next. But the story so far is a good one. Democrats (and the media) desperately wanted this effort to fail but it hasn't.
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