Throughout his State of the Union deal with on Tuesday (Feb. 24), President Donald Trump claimed that, due to his administration’s deployment of the Nationwide Guard, crime had decreased in cities comparable to New Orleans, Memphis, and Washington, D.C. In regard to D.C., Trump claimed there was virtually no crime.
Nonetheless, present figures from the Metropolitan Police Division contradict Trump’s claims that crime has been fully eradicated. There have been 9 murders in 2026, in comparison with 27 throughout the identical monitoring interval final 12 months. Nonetheless, assault with a harmful weapon crimes are up 20 p.c, with 126 incidents occurring thus far this 12 months in comparison with 105 incidents across the identical interval final 12 months.
D.C. had a 21-day stretch earlier this 12 months with no recorded murder, the longest streak with no homicide in additional than a decade. In keeping with a January 29 report by the Washington Submit, just one individual had been murdered within the month of January. Trump associates and others who supported his use of the Nationwide Guard within the nation’s capital claimed the Guard’s presence on the bottom was one of many major causes for the drop in crime, however crime figures have been already falling lengthy earlier than the Guard was deployed.
In a 20-year murder pattern, murders dropped sharply from a peak of 274 in 2023 to 187 in 2024. By comparability, the town had 60 fewer murders in 2025, with solely 127.
In sum, violent crime in D.C. was down for the second consecutive 12 months.
In 2025, Trump claimed that D.C. was below a “crime emergency,” prompting a federal takeover of the MPD. Even earlier than that, the Justice Division launched figures in 2025 stating that crime in D.C. had hit a 30-year low in 2024 below the Biden Administration.
In keeping with the Council of Felony Justice, crime charges fell nationwide in 2025. Homicides have been down 21 p.c from 2024 and 44 p.c since a current peak in 2021.
The State of the Union featured a number of protests, together with Rep. Al Inexperienced (D-TX), who held an indication that mentioned “Black Folks Are Not Apes.” He was escorted out, however not earlier than being confronted by soon-to-be retiring Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) and two different Republicans.
