Crime in Washington is really out of control, as Trump claims?

President Donald Trump has said he will deploy hundreds of troops on the National Guard in Washington and take control of his police department.

At a press conference, he declared “Liberation Day” for the city and promised to “save the capital of our nation from crime, bloodshed, hive and poor man and worse.”

Washington Mayor, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, said the city “observed a huge reduction in crime” and was “with 30-year low crime violence.”

The BBC checks what the numbers of violent crime in the capital show and how it is compared to other cities in the United States.

Trump’s executive order, which announces a “emergency situation in Colombia” mentions “increasing violence in the capital.” In his press conference, he made repeated references that crime was “out of control”.

According to crime reports published by the MPDC (MPDC) Sofia, violent crimes fell after peak in 2023 and in 2024 reached their lowest level in 30 years.

They continue to fall, according to the preliminary data for 2025.

The common crime of violence is 26% this year compared to the same point in 2024, and the robbery is 28%, According to MPDCS

Trump and the DC Police Union have questioned the truth of the city police crime data.

The violent crime is different from MPDC and FBI, another major source of crime statistics in the United States.

MPDC public data show a 35% decrease in 2024, while FBI data show a 9% decrease.

Thus, the numbers agree that crime falls in DC, but differs in the level of this decline.

The downward trend is “unmistakable and big”, according to Adam Gelb, CEO of the Criminal Justice Council (CCJ), a legal troupe.

“The numbers are shifted depending on what period of time and what types of crimes you are looking at,” said G -N Gelb.

“But in general, there is an unmistakable and major decline in violence since the summer of 2023, when there were peaks in killings, weapons attacks, robbery and theft.”

Trump also claims that “the killings in 2023 reach the highest percentage, probably ever” in Washington – adding that the numbers “just come back 25”.

When we asked the White House the source of the numbers, they said it was “numbers provided by the FBI.”

The killing coefficient jumped in 2023 to about 40 per 100,000 inhabitants – the highest percentage of 20 years, according to the FBI.

However, this was not the highest registered so far -it was significantly higher in the 90 and early 2000s.

The murder ratio dropped in 2024 and this year dropped by 12% at the same point last year, According to MPDCS

Research suggests that the percentage of killings of the capital is higher than the average than other major cities in the United States.

As of August 11, there are 99 murders in Washington-influential 21-year-old Congress trainee shot at Crossfire, a case that Trump pointed out at his press conference.

The president also mentioned the case of a 19-year-old former employee of the Ministry of Government Efficiency (DOG), who was injured in an alleged attempt to steal in the capital in early August.

Trump claims that “the number of destruction is more than a triple” in the last five years.

So far this year, MPDC has recorded 189 wearing crimesdown from 300 in the same period last year.

According to CCJ, the supporter rises significantly from 2020 onwards and headed for a monthly peak of 140 reported incidents in June 2023.

Since July 2025, a city police officer for people under the age of 17 from 23:00 to 06:00 has been entered.

It was introduced To combat minor crimes – including accumulation – which is often spread during the summer months.

“The level of violence in the district remains mostly higher than the average three dozens of cities in our sample,” we told us G -N Gelb of CCJ.

“Although its tendency to reduce is in line with what we see in other major cities across the country,” he added.

CCJ is watching Crime odds in 30 major cities in the United StatesS

His analysis suggests that the percentage of killings in DC dropped by 19% in the first half of this year (January-June 2025), compared to the same period last year.

This is a slightly larger drop than 17% average decline in cities in the CCJ survey sample.

However, if you took the first six months of 2025 and compare it to the same period in 2019 – before the Covid -19 pandemic – this shows only a 3% decrease in killings.

In the 30 cities in the study, this reduction is 14% over the same period of time.