WASHINGTON: Hundreds of National Guard soldiers in military fatigues and combat boots mingled with tourists, posed for selfies, and treated themselves to ice cream from food trucks on Thursday along Washington’s National Mall, one of the safest parts of America’s capital.
On occasion an angry local would hurl verbal abuse at them, but the soldiers simply shrugged and carried on what appeared to be an undemanding assignment.
Outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, five members of the West Virginia National Guard were standing on the street corner far away from the city’s crime hot spots.
“It’s boring. We’re not really doing much,” said Sergeant Fox, who declined to give his first name.
Fox is among almost 2,000 troops, including 1,200 from six Republican-led states, who are being deployed in Washington as part of an extraordinary militarization inside the Democratic-led city.
The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.
That disconnect, combined with the troop concentration near the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and in view of the U.S. Capitol, highlights criticism by the city’s Democratic leaders that this massive deployment is more a show of power by Trump, rather than a serious effort to fight crime.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said this week she did not think the arrival of troops was about tackling crime. She also expressed concern about the presence of “an armed militia in the nation’s capital.”
The soldiers seen by Reuters on Thursday were not armed, but the Pentagon said on Friday the troops will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons.
By contrast with central Washington, residents of Ward 8 in the city’s southeast – the area with the highest crime rate – said there was not a guardsman in sight. With the ward’s murder rate dwarfing that of most other neighborhoods, many locals said they would welcome troops on their streets.
“I haven’t seen any. This is where they need to be,” said Shawana Turner, 50, a housing case manager on a Ward 8 street.
The Joint Task Force for the District of Columbia, which is leading the crime crackdown, said where National Guard troops are deployed is based on requests from law enforcement agencies.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said teams of federal law enforcement officials are making arrests in Washington’s highest crime areas every night.
“The National Guard is not making arrests at this time, their role is to protect federal assets – including law enforcement officers – and provide a visible law enforcement presence,” she said.
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The troops are one element of a surge of local and federal law enforcement agents in Washington, including the FBI, who have conducted active arrest operations since Trump announced earlier this month that he was federalizing law enforcement responsibility in Washington.
Deploying troops on American streets is rare and controversial. National Guard have been sent to Washington in recent years, to help bolster security at presidential inaugurations and during protests, including the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
But the city’s declining crime rate, coupled with the limited involvement of the troops in crime fighting, has raised questions about the political motivations behind the current deployment.
Randy Manner, a retired National Guard major general, said he believed the deployment is a step towards Trump sending National Guard troops into other Democratic-led cities.
“Not in our lifetimes has a president said that I’m going to use uniformed soldiers to reduce crime,” Manner told Reuters.
“There will be soldiers in other cities in the not-too-distant future. We’re turning this into a militarized environment, and it’s extremely sad.”
During a visit to a police base in Washington on Thursday, Trump said his law enforcement crackdown will “go onto other places.” Earlier this month Trump suggested he could shift his focus to cities including Chicago and New York.
To be sure, the presence of the guard in the heart of Washington was welcomed by some visitors.
As troops on the National Mall mingled with tourists from the U.S. and abroad, a group of guardsmen from Mississippi were walking alongside Anu Pokharel, his wife, and two daughters aged 8 and 5.
The software engineer, 43, who lived in Washington in the 1990s, was visiting the city with his family from Boston.
He said he supported the deployment. “It feels cleaner and safer,” he said.
As they strolled around central Washington, some soldiers told Reuters that they did not expect to get involved in arrests.
Specialist Nevaeh Lekanudos, part of West Virginia’s National Guard, was outside a Metro station in the National Mall with several fellow guard members. She said she had not assisted in crime incidents or arrests.
Asked if she thought that is likely, she said, “Honestly at this rate I don’t believe so.” She added by being deployed in the National Mall, “it frees up the local law enforcement to do what they need to do.”
Reuters spoke to 20 National Guard members, from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Governors from two other Republican-led states, Ohio and Louisiana, have also sent National Guard troops at Trump’s request.
Most of the soldiers told Reuters they had been instructed not to talk to the press. Instead they had all been issued with a printed statement they produced from their pockets.
It states that they are in the city to support “district and federal law enforcement by keeping DC beautiful and safe.”
