The Data Doesn’t Support Trump’s Justification for Deploying the National Guard
The Metropolitan Police Department reports that homicide is down 12 percent in 2025 compared to the same period last year. In January, MPD reported that violent crime — which includes homicide, armed carjacking, and assault with a dangerous weapon — was at a 30-year low.
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Gun Violence Has Declined in D.C. Since 2023: Shooting deaths and injuries in the nation’s capital have declined so far in 2025, compared to the same time period in previous years.
— Chip Brownlee / Source: Gun Violence Archive
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“You could make a very valid argument that D.C. has too many murders,” said Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst who runs the Real-Time Crime Index, which tracks local crime statistics. “What you can’t do is make the argument that things are getting worse. The idea that everything is getting worse, and we have to do something with the National Guard, is a rejection of the data.”
According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit digital database that houses detailed information on gun injuries and deaths, 89 people have died of gunshot wounds in the capital so far this year, a 15 percent drop from the same time in 2024. At least 232 people have been injured, a decrease of 39 percent. Compared to 2023, the high-water mark of the past decade in the district, shooting deaths so far this year are down 44 percent and injuries are down 53 percent.
What the Data Says About Other Cities
In his remarks, Trump singled out five other cities where he claimed crime is “very bad”: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Oakland, California. The president suggested that they could be next in line for a federal takeover. But those cities have also shown decreases in gun violence in recent years. “He’s not exaggerating — he’s lying,” said David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
In Chicago, shooting deaths are down 32 percent year-over-year, and injuries are down 39 percent, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Shooting deaths in New York City are down 13 percent, and injuries are down 26 percent. Baltimore has seen drops of 17 percent and 15 percent, respectively. In Oakland, gun fatalities have fallen 20 percent; injuries, 45 percent. In Los Angeles, fatal shootings are up 59 percent compared to this time last year, but down 11 percent compared to the same period in 2021.
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Shooting Deaths Have Fallen from Pandemic Highs in Major Cities: Shooting deaths in six cities have declined so far in 2025, compared to the same time period in previous years
— Chip Brownlee / Source: Gun Violence Archive
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According to data reported by law enforcement agencies through May, reported homicides by any means have plummeted more than 20 percent in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore.
Violence falls because of a number of interconnected factors, Kennedy said, and it’s unlikely that any single strategy is causing the decline. “We don’t know exactly why, but something that is true in many of these cities is they’re pursuing evidence-based violence prevention that we know can work,” Kennedy said. “There is a whole portfolio of demonstrably effective approaches that have been developed over the last couple of decades.”
According to the FBI’s national crime rate report, released last week, murder declined across every population group in 2024. An analysis by Asher, the crime statistician, indicates there was a 19 percent drop in cities of 1 million. “Murder surged in 2020,” he told The Trace. “It has since come down, and in 2024 was roughly at the same level it was in 2019. This year, the early data suggests we may see the lowest murder rate ever recorded in the country.”
Could Deploying the National Guard Reduce Crime?
Under federal law, Trump can assume control of Washington for 30 days, at which point he must ask Congress for an extension. There is no similar mechanism for him to legally assume control of other cities.
There’s little — if any — research about deploying the National Guard for crime control, largely because using the guard for everyday policing is unprecedented. Experts fear that Trump’s strategy could backfire. “Normally, police solve violent crime because people in the community tell them what’s going on, and they’re able to act on that information,” said Kennedy, who also directs John Jay’s National Network for Safe Communities. “When communities don’t feel they’re being policed properly, they stop helping. It’s very common for what’s seen as illegitimate policing to result in spikes of violence. And I’m very concerned about that in this instance.”
While sending more police into high-crime areas can sometimes help reduce violence in the short-term, Kennedy said the effects typically don’t last. “It’s just the nature of violent crime that, for the most part, simply increasing numbers doesn’t make a big difference,” he said.
Abt, the criminologist, said research shows that the most effective violence-reduction strategies are focused, balanced, and keep in mind fairness and legitimacy. By those measures, the D.C. plan fails. “This is completely unfocused. It pays no attention to the highest-risk people and places in D.C.,” Abt said. “It’s completely unbalanced. There are no non-enforcement resources being dedicated. And it’s not going to be perceived as fair or legitimate by the residents of D.C., who didn’t ask for this, weren’t consulted, and whose elected officials weren’t consulted.”
While the guard deployment won’t necessarily make crime worse, Abt said, it is a missed opportunity to address the city’s real needs. “There’s a ton of things to do in D.C., but they’re not bumper-sticker ideas,” he said. “They’re fixes to the overall criminal justice ecosystem. Criminal justice systems operate like an old stereo, which only sounds as good as its worst component.”
Abt, who is also a former Justice Department official and has testified before Congress on combating violent crime in the capital, said priorities should include repairing the city’s long-troubled crime lab, filling court vacancies, improving information-sharing between federal and local police agencies, and strengthening community violence intervention programs.
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“The idea that everything is getting worse, and we have to do something with the National Guard, is a rejection of the data.”
— Jeff Asher, crime data analyst
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Research also shows that when it comes to policing in particular, improving clearance rates — by solving crimes and closing cases — is one of the best ways of reducing violence. Deploying the National Guard is unlikely to help with that, experts said. Generally, guard members are not trained in ordinary police work like responding to 911 calls or investigating crimes.
“What is the real way to build trust between residents and police? The police solve crimes,” said Elizabeth Glazer, the founder of Vital City, a public safety journal at Columbia Law School in New York. “People feel confident that they can go and report a crime, because they think something will be done about it. Is that what he’s going to be having the National Guard do? I don’t think so.”
Policing is also not a role the guard is interested in, especially considering “the trauma associated with their deployment to college campuses,” said Jorge Camacho, an associate research scholar in law and policing at Yale Law School. That includes the 1970 shooting at Kent State University in Ohio, where guard members opened fire on student demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine. “I think they view their mission very differently than one rooted in local policing,” Camacho said of the guard. “That’s not what they do and that’s not what they want to do. And frankly, I don’t think that’s what anyone wants them to do, aside from Donald Trump.”
Past Deployments
Historically, the president has deployed the guard to desegregate schools and protect civil rights protesters — but not to police street crime, experts say. The guard was federalized during the 1967 Detroit uprising against systemic racism and police brutality; to quell unrest after the 1968 murder of Martin Luther King Jr.; and to police the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the not guilty verdict for the officers who beat motorist Rodney King.
“The instances where the National Guard has been deployed, it’s been moments of actual civil unrest and disruption, where there was a real concern or evidence of violence,” Glazer said. “That’s very different from taking over a police department in order to do patrols.”
This latest deployment marks the first time the National Guard has been sent into the capital since the insurrection on January 6, 2021. But using the guard has been a second-term priority for Trump, who campaigned on federalizing guard members to “restore law and order when local law enforcement refuses to act.”
Trump deployed both guard members and Marines to downtown Los Angeles in June to protect federal buildings amid protests against his administration’s immigration raids. The legality of that deployment is being debated this month in court.
Trump has also deployed military units and National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to assist with immigration enforcement, most recently in March. National Guard troops were also deployed to the border in 2018, during Trump’s first term; in 2010, under President Barack Obama; and in 2006, when George W. Bush was president. In 2020, Trump deployed the guard to quell anti-police-brutality protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Governors have used the guard for policing, but in a limited capacity. Guard members have been a presence in major New York City transit hubs since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but they were deployed by the governor, not the president. Last December, New York Governor Kathy Hochul expanded the guard’s presence in the subways to address riders’ safety concerns.
There’s little, if any research, on what impact even limited guard deployments have on violent crime. In the case of New York’s subways, it’s not clear they made much difference.“Subway crime went down, but crime went down above ground as well,” Glazer said. “Given both the rarity of crime underground and how dispersed it is — and where the National Guard was stationed — it’s really hard to see a causal relationship.”
Camacho called Trump’s plans for the capital “political theater.” Though there’s no legal basis for the president to take control of other cities, red-state governors could imitate Trump by deploying the National Guard for political purposes, he said. “This could be a template that other executives around the country could use to target municipalities and police forces that they find to be politically problematic.”
Chip Brownlee is a reporter at The Trace covering federal policy related to violence prevention and firearms. This article is published courtesy of The Trace.
