Above photo: Federal forces seen in Washington, DC on August 14.
Amid federal takeover of city’s law enforcement.
DC residents stand firm against federal takeover which many label as racially charged.
Several days after US President Donald Trump announced his takeover of the local police force of Washington, DC, federal forces have begun patrolling the streets of the US capital. The Pentagon announced Thursday, August 14 that all 800 National Guard troops President Trump ordered into Washington’s streets this week to restore “law and order” have now been deployed.
Defense Department Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said that in rotating shifts of 100 to 200 unarmed soldiers, the National Guard will assist Washington police and federal law enforcement by guarding monuments and federal buildings, conducting “community safety patrols,” and engaging in “area beautification.” Federal forces, combined with local police, have set up several checkpoints throughout the city streets, stopping vehicles for supposed violations. Some checkpoints have become sites of protests launched by outraged DC residents.
During the first two nights of the federal takeover, authorities made 66 arrests, with another 45 on Wednesday night. Of the 45 people arrested Wednesday night, 29 were undocumented immigrants, according to a White House official who spoke to TIME Magazine, highlighting the operation’s deep ties to immigration enforcement.
“We’re now over 120 arrests since President Trump’s initiative began,” said FBI director Kash Patel in a post on X.
DC residents stand firm against federal takeover
Many in DC, however, have resolved to push back against this federal takeover. On Wednesday, over 100 people gathered at a federal checkpoint in DC’s Shaw neighborhood, where an increased presence of agents is patrolling the city under the Trump administration’s takeover of the DC police. Protesters yelled chants of “Go home, fascists” and other insults at the officers manning the checkpoint.
Tensions over President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement erupted at a checkpoint on a busy Northwest Washington street Wednesday night as onlookers chanted: “Go home, fascists.” https://t.co/XgjTopAtbp pic.twitter.com/4z99sbTgOM
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 14, 2025
Demonstrations have popped up throughout the city since Trump’s announcement. In a rally on Wednesday at Franklin Square Park in downtown DC, protesters held hand-painted signs that read “Free DC” and “Chocolate city not pig city.” DC has long been known by its nickname “Chocolate City” since it became the first major city to have a majority Black population. Some protesters, public figures, and organizations have decried the racial undertones of Trump’s takeover of the city.
A protester told BreakThrough News that Trump’s takeover is “an outright war on poor people.”
“We are now seeing federal troops combining forces to harass and detain, follow and surveil, Black, Brown, working class, poor, unhoused people in DC. What else could that be but war?”
“The racist elimination of working class neighborhoods”
In his announcement of the federal takeover to members of the press, Trump claimed that “caravans of masked youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day,” in DC, adding that he would be “getting rid of the slums where they live,” without specifying precisely which “slums” he was referring to. Many have labeled this language as racially charged.
“Trump is targeting Black youth,” says Esther Iverem, DC-based journalist and host of the podcast “On The Ground: Voices of Resistance”. Iverem referred to Trump’s involvement in trying to incarcerate the later exonerated “Central Park 5” as an example of a pattern of racist behavior. In 1989, after five Black and Latino teenagers – later known as the Central Park Five – were wrongfully accused of raping a white jogger in New York City, Donald Trump took out full-page ads in four major New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.
Trump also mentioned other cities in his remarks as being sites of potential future federal takeovers, naming Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland and New York. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told Politico that Trump’s actions are a “continuation of the president, unfortunately, spouting these racist-based, right-wing propaganda talking points about cities and Black-led cities.”
“Trump has outlined an occupation force, directed violence against the inhabitants of the District and called for the racist elimination of working class neighborhoods,” said constitutional rights litigator Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.
“This decision to attack the autonomy of Washington, DC voters isn’t about safety. Crime is down in the District. Homicides in the District fell by 32% in 2024 and are continuing to decline. Violent crime overall has decreased and is near historic lows. DC already incarcerates its youth at three times the national rate. So why does this Administration insist on ignoring reality?” asked Liz Komar, Sentencing Reform Counsel at The Sentencing Project. Trump’s federal takeover will “exacerbate racial inequality and worsen mass incarceration,” Komar argues.
