In August, the Trump administration ordered a federal takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force, deploying hundreds of members of the National Guard and federal law enforcement to the city.
President Trump said his goal was to combat crime, even though violent crime rates in the Washington area are at a three-decade low, according to Mayor Muriel Bowser. He is also threatening to send federal troops to other parts of the country.
Reporting Intern Caleb Stutman-Shaw was in downtown Washington, DC late last month. He spoke with News Director Halle Zander about his observations and what Coloradans could expect if the National Guard moves into other cities.
Halle Zander: Alright, so to start off, where in Washington, D.C. were you, and what did you see?
Caleb Stutman-Shaw: So, I started by the Lincoln Memorial. I headed east across the National Mall to Union Station, and then north to the U Street Corridor.
I did see a bunch of people in military uniform walking across the National Mall in groups of about two to five.
They seemed to be mostly milling about; I actually saw a family approach a group of guardsmen for a picture.
Then, over at Union Station, it was pretty much the same, but there were some armored vehicles out front.
I didn’t see any guardsmen when I went up to U Street.
It is worth noting that there have been checkpoints in these spots where people are stopped and sometimes asked about their immigration status, but that has been more common in less touristy areas.
Zander: So, you spoke to a lot of locals. How were they feeling? What did they say to you?
Stutman-Shaw: Most of the people that I spoke to did seem concerned with what law enforcement has been doing and their expectations for the future.
Gina Brent works at Lee’s Flower Shop, which has been a mainstay of U Street for decades.
She mentioned that she had noticed U Street being much quieter than normal.
“Some of the people that they are targeting, I should say, they’re not coming to work,” Brent said. “They are not coming into the city. They’re afraid.”
I also spoke to Nick Tsusaki, who is the founder and owner of Spark Social House, an LGBTQ+ community hub.
Nick was especially concerned for D.C. Black, Hispanic, and Queer communities.
Nick told me that he would much rather interact with local police that were familiar with the community.
That’s because law enforcement from other states can make unfair assumptions about D.C. locals.
One man said that he was happy to have the National Guard there; he thinks crime in D.C. is a really serious problem, and that the presence of law enforcement serves as a deterrent.
So, the views of D.C. locals on the police takeover is not one-dimensional, but most people were concerned.
Zander: You spoke to Dr. Jonathon Booth. He’s a historian of law and policing at the University of Colorado Law School, and he talked about what this episode in D.C. might mean for those of us here in Colorado.
How does he make sense of it, and does he think we might see something similar in our state?
Stutman-Shaw: Well, Dr. Booth told me that the deployment of the National Guard and federal police in Washington, D.C. is “totally unprecedented.”
He told me that the Trump administration has a real disdain for Americans who live in cities, especially Black-led ones.
Dr. Booth said that what’s going on is more about asserting power than about public safety.
In terms of what the future holds for Coloradans, that much is unclear.
The federal government is not talking very much about Denver, Dr. Booth told me, although it does meet the important criteria of “city in a blue state.”
This type of action, he said, is much more likely in these cities than in rural areas.
The federal government has more power over D.C. than other places, though.
The President does have the power to take over the D.C. police, but not the local police officers of anywhere else in the country.
Regardless, the city of D.C. is currently suing the Trump administration over this National Guard deployment.
And a judge recently ruled Trump’s use of the National Guard in Los Angeles back in June was illegal. So that could make it harder for him to do the same thing in Colorado.
Zander: If something like what we see in D.C. does come to Colorado, how does Dr. Booth expect Gov. Polis will react? And how does he think Coloradans might respond?
Stutman-Shaw: Well, Dr. Booth did tell me that, “Every urban resident across the country should be getting prepared.”
“In the end, I think this is a question of self-government, whether we will elect our mayor, elect our city council, elect our governor, state legislatures, whether we have the power to govern our own affairs,” Dr. Booth said.
But as for the response of Gov. Polis, Dr. Booth isn’t sure how he will react. Dr. Booth said he hopes that Polis would mirror Gov. Pritzker in Illinois. Pritzker said he wouldn’t allow federal troops in Chicago.
But just this past weekend Trump said that he fully intended to send them anyway, saying on social media, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.”
He’s since backtracked that a bit, saying he’s not going to war in American cities, but he’s vowing to clean them up.
Zander: So, just to be clear. Dr. Booth really was warning people in urban areas about this kind of federal action. But what about rural areas like Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley? Do we have anything to worry about, according to him?
Stutman-Shaw: So, he was pretty clear that there is more risk in urban areas, that that is where most of the focus is by the Trump administration. But I wouldn’t say he ruled out action in rural areas, especially highly populated rural areas like the Roaring Fork Valley.
Zander: Caleb, thank you for your reporting.
Stutman-Shaw: Thank you very much.
