It's been 24 hours since President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in the Nation's Capitol, citing a failure of local political leadership to keep Washington D.C. safe from criminals.
🚨 President Trump announces he is invoking the D.C. Home Rule Act to place the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deploy the National Guard.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 11, 2025
"This is Liberation Day in D.C. — and we're going to take our capital BACK." pic.twitter.com/aqov60mrCW
The aftermath of the announcement puts a microscope on how D.C. has handled crime in recent years.
In 2021 the Department of Forensic Sciences, the lab used by local law enforcement and prosecutors for cases in D.C., lost its accreditation over mishandling of evidence and other failed lab practices. Just this year, it received accreditation for some evidence analysis, including DNA, drugs, other substances and fingerprints, but is still unable to conduct ballistic testing.
"For years the D.C. crime lab wasn't allowed to process cases due to a lack of accreditation. The testing had to be outsourced, which took more time, hindering the possibility of catching suspects and exonerating others," local ABC News 7 reports. "Then U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said that 66 percent of cases that weren’t prosecuted in 2022 and more than half in 2023 were mostly misdemeanors that required testing that the lab couldn’t do."
It took four years for the lab to get its accreditation back. The result? A lack of prosecutions, criminals walking free and a failure to get justice for victims.
Despite this failure, Democrats and their allies in the media continue to argue crime is "down" in the District. Crime is raging and it isn't being properly prosecuted.