Washington DC—Grassroots groups held an urgent press conference Monday in response to the regime’s declaration of a crime emergency and its federal takeover of the DC Metropolitan Police Department. Speakers from FreeDCProject, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, and 50501 organized the press conference along with other groups. Collectively they said the takeover was unwarranted, without a justification, and it actually endangered DC residents by placing them in a virtual police state and making them less safe.
Nee Nee Taylor, a longtime DC Civil Rights advocate and activist, and co-founder of FreeDCProject said, “The only violence that’s happening against our communities is the violence this president is directing.” Taylor, who has been involved in the Movement for Black Lives, also drew on the experiences she has witnessed with ICE, lambasted Trump’s provocative policies.
“For 4 months straight, the president has been trying to provoke violence in the Black and the Brown communities by having ICE kidnap our neighbors,” she said. ICE actions have ramped up in the region as the Federal police agency, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has begun rounding up immigrants and green card holders as part of a misguided plan to curb immigration.
Another speaker also intoned the same sentiment, casting the takeover of DC as destabilizing to city safety and well-being of peaceful communities while wasting taxpayer money on a scheme that was ill prepared and haphazardly implemented. “Nothing Trump is doing is about our safety. If Trump cared about safety, he would stop kidnapping immigrant neighbors. Terrorizing people is not about safety. If he cared about safety he would fund Medicaid, schools, and SNAP because people being sick, hungry, and out of school is not about safety.”
As night time set around the District, there was a report that the newly federalized police force had set up a checkpoint at the large intersection of New York Avenue and Bladensberg Road. Every car that passed that intersection was being stopped and its driver queried.
Police were seen in force at many metro train stop platforms throughout the day and were visible in high numbers particularly in the downtown area. Squads of police were recorded roving near the African American Museum and the Washington Monument. Groups of federalized police were also roving in downtown shopping areas.
Earlier in the day Trump cited an August 3 assault by juveniles on an individual working for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as an indication that crime was out of control in the District.
However, a report published on the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia, dated January 3, 2025, just weeks before Trump was sworn in, reflected crime in DC had fallen to 30-year lows. The report read, “Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and announced by United States Attorney Matthew M. Graves. A breakdown of the data is available here.”
We saved the report on an archive server so it could be accessed in case it is removed from the U.S. Attorney’s Office website.
FreeDCProject has published a series of bulletins on its website outlining what the residents of DC can do to ensure safe DC communities even though the Federal government is not acting in the city’s best interests. They urged residents not to obey in advance, to put up banners and signs resisting the takeover, to speak to their neighbors about what was happening, to organize resistance campaigns while expressing joy and camaraderie, to resist the takeover.
FreeDCProject is offering free training on cop watch, community building, and safety b st practices in the worsening climate of authoritarian oppression.
Visit their website here and consider donating to their grassroots efforts.
Media Also Faces Authoritarian Threat
We are already bearing witness to a trend of established institutions bending to authoritarian pressure. The capitulation of mainstream media to lawsuits by ‘obey in advance’ payout settlements is a sign of that.
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