Updated August 30, 2025 at 2:34 PM EDT
WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Nancy Barnes first heard President Trump wanted to take over D.C.'s police and deploy the National Guard, she hated the idea.
"I thought that was absurd ... because obviously we're not in the middle of a giant riot or anything that would necessitate having the National Guard here," says Barnes, who lives in a townhouse on the edge of Capitol Hill.
Barnes, a former TV broadcaster and public school teacher, generally feels safe in her gentrifying neighborhood. But she also says it can be a free-for-all at times. Several weeks ago, someone drove a motorcycle down the sidewalk in front of her house and nearly ran her down. On Friday evenings, upwards of 20 men roar down the street on deafening ATVs, which are illegal in D.C.
So when Barnes heard federal agents had arrested an ATV driver earlier this month, she was elated.
"That's amazing," she recalls thinking. "I just felt like someone was doing something."
Barnes, 56, knows many other neighborhoods in the district have much higher crime rates than hers. But she says crime is still a genuine concern and she'd like to see more law enforcement on the streets.
Like Barnes, nearly eight in 10 city residents oppose the president's takeover of the police department, according to a recent poll conducted by the Washington Post. Twenty-two percent of those polled said crime was Washington's top problem. Nearly a quarter cited Trump and his takeover of police as the city's biggest problem.
Barnes posted her thoughts about the arrest of the ATV driver on her Facebook page and — as she had feared — she quickly came in for criticism.
Her friend DJ Paul, who lives in Los Angeles, responded sarcastically: "Let's call on the military because of these quality of life issues you mentioned. That seems like a reasonable response."
Barnes had not suggested that and Paul later apologized.
"This administration is tapping into something that existed already," Paul said later in an interview with NPR. "They're not fabricating something. People don't feel safe."
Few would object to a greater police presence
A 12-minute drive from Barnes' home lies Deanwood, a predominantly black neighborhood in a section of the city where there have been 22 homicides so far this year, according to D.C. police. Justina Wilkins-Jordan, 64, has run a hair salon in Deanwood for a decade.
She says shootings and street fights are common. Drug deals are often conducted in broad daylight.
Like Nancy Barnes, Wilkins-Jordan wants more security on the streets. She also says the D.C. police need to be much more visible in the community. But — more than two weeks after the White House declared a "crime emergency" — she says she has yet to see any federal officers or National Guard troops in the neighborhood.
Even as she welcomes more law enforcement, Wilkins-Jordan says she distrusts the president's motives. She thinks President Trump is using Washington's crime problem to expand his power and undermine the city's democratic leadership.
"I think he wants to destroy the Democratic Party," she says, sitting on a white, plastic chair on the porch of her salon. "He knows that he can go into these cities that are run by a Democrat and control it and say, 'Hey, we don't need Democrats. They are not doing an effective job.'"
Wilkins-Jordan says she thinks the federal deployment here is part of President Trump's broader agenda: "He definitely wants to be a dictator."
President Trump insists that he is just trying to protect people from what he calls a "crime emergency" in Washington, even though the Justice Department has said violent crime fell to a 30-year low in 2024.
Speaking in the Oval Office Tuesday, the president said some Democrats like to portray him as a dictator.
"A lot of people are saying, 'maybe we like a dictator,'" said President Trump. "I'm not a dictator. I'm a man with great common sense and I'm a smart person."
D.C. crime data show that since federal forces were deployed, the city had a 12-day stretch without a homicide. President Trump has claimed the federal crackdown has been so successful, there is no crime in the city, which is false.
While conducting interviews for this story, an NPR reporter came across a fresh crime scene wrapped in yellow police tape in the city's Trinidad neighborhood. An officer was laying down white cards on the sidewalk to mark where half a dozen shell casings had landed.
Witnesses said two men had opened fire at each other across an intersection in front of an auto mechanic shop. No one was injured.
"Some adolescent guys, they're just going crazy, doing wild stuff," says Komba Mboma, who owns the shop, which is about a 20-minute drive east of the White House.
Mboma, 60, said police arrived within minutes.
"The police department in D.C., they're doing a pretty good job," says Mboma. "It's not like before. Ten to 15 years ago, this place was worse."
Unlike Wilkins-Jordan, Mboma says police around here are responsive and he thinks they can handle crime on their own.
As for the deployment of federal forces, Mboma says: "It's just making people scared."
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