White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that about 850 officers and agents made nearly two dozen arrests on the first night of President Donald Trump’s crackdown in Washington, D.C.

Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) led to 23 arrests for several crimes, including homicide, firearm offenses, and driving under the influence, Leavitt said. Law enforcement additionally seized six illegal firearms.

“Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the district who breaks the law, undermines public safety, and endangers law-abiding Americans,” Leavitt said. “President Trump will not be deterred by soft-on-crime Democrats and media activists who refuse to acknowledge this rampant violence on our streets. He is going to make our nation’s capital the most beautiful and safe city on Earth, just as he promised on the campaign trail.”

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Agents and law enforcement also arrested individuals for stalking, fare evasion, possession with the intent to distribute narcotics, reckless driving, fleeing to elude an officer’s vehicle, lewd acts, and possession of a high-capacity magazine.

The corporate media and city officials in Washington have claimed that Trump is pushing a false narrative about rising violent crime in the district. The MPD’s crime statistics show that violent crime has dropped 35% since 2024, though it does not include aggravated or felony assault in its data.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) data, which includes aggravated and felony assault, shows that the number of violent offenses in the district has only dropped by 10% since 2024 and remains slightly higher than in 2018. Homicide rates have also remained above pre-pandemic levels with the exception of 2021, a year when Washington submitted incomplete data, according to Axios.

MPD’s data only includes homicides, sex abuse crimes, assault with a dangerous weapon, and robbery in its overall “violent crime” numbers. The department suspended a police commander in May and began investigating him for allegedly making suspicious changes to the statistics for his area of Washington to make it appear as if crime had decreased.

The Rochester Institute for Technology found that Washington’s murder rate in 2024 was the fourth highest in the U.S., above Chicago, New York City, and Atlanta.

In 2025 thus far, a gang-related shooting killed 21-year-old congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym near a Metro station on June 30. A separate shooting killed two Israeli Embassy staffers as they were exiting the Capitol Jewish Museum on the night of May 22.

The administration began aggressively addressing the crime issue after Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer Edward Coristine, also known as “Big Balls,” got severely beaten after he tried to stop a carjacking on Aug. 5.

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