Donald Trump has seized direct control of Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, removing authority from Mayor Muriel Bowser and placing the force under the command of Attorney General Tom Cotton. The move comes under a ‘crime emergency’ declaration that allows the president to invoke Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, a rarely used law that exists only because the District lacks full statehood.

For Mayor Bowser, this means she no longer has operational control of her own police department. All decisions on how and where officers are deployed now run through the Justice Department. That includes the ability to redirect D.C. police from neighborhood patrols to guard federal buildings, secure national monuments, and police protests—even if it leaves fewer officers in local communities. For African Americans in the District (who make up nearly half the city’s population), the change places local policing under the direct control of a president who has repeatedly called for racial profiling, attacked other predominately Black-led cities such as Baltimore and Chicago, and used ‘law and order’ policies that disproportionately target Black communities. Residents could see federal priorities override local crime prevention strategies, with increased policing around demonstrations and broader latitude for aggressive enforcement tactics. Trump justified the takeover by citing D.C.’s 2024 homicide and vehicle theft rates, even though other cities he has singled out (all with large Black populations and Black leadership) have seen major crime reductions this year. The order has no end date, meaning the District’s police could remain under federal command indefinitely. This is only possible because D.C. is not a state—a political reality that leaves its leadership vulnerable to federal override and its residents without full control over their own local government.