Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a post on X that a “malodorous” person unsuccessfully attempted to steal her phone in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
“A malodorous homeless person attempted to swipe my phone today while I was walking in DC back to the DOJ from an appointment — but he was not in his right mind and I artfully dodged the attempt. It’ll be a while till things feel safe in this city, so everyone stay alert!” Dhillon wrote.
She said in another post that she was “ok,” and “nothing happened.”
“I was faster than the homeless guy. It was next to the NY Ave Presbyterian Church. Several other homeless and mentally fragile people around. Close to the WH and tourist stuff,” Dhillon explained.
President Donald Trump is intensifying his efforts to combat crime in the nation’s capital.
“This is liberation day in D.C. and we’re gonna take our capital back,” Trump declared during a press conference on Monday.
A memorandum directs “the Secretary of Defense to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service, in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital.”
An executive order declares that “Effective immediately, the Mayor of the District of Columbia (Mayor) shall provide the services of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes for the maximum period permitted under section 740 of the Home Rule Act.”
Statistics show that the nation’s capital is plagued by violent crime when compared to other metropolitan regions around the country.
In a news conference on Monday, Trump announced that he intends to deploy National Guard personnel to the city’s streets while seizing control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to restore safety and combat violence.
“You can be anything you want, but you want to have safety in the streets,” Trump said. “You want to be able to leave your apartment or your house where you live and feel safe and go into a store to buy a newspaper or buy something, and you don’t have that now.”
This action is in response to the fact that the nation’s capital “averaged one of the highest robbery and murder rates among large cities nationwide,” according to an executive order titled “Declaring a Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia.”
“Indeed, the District of Columbia now has a higher violent crime, murder, and robbery rate than all 50 states, recording a homicide rate in 2024 of 27.54 per 100,000 residents,” the order states.
“The recent increase of federal law enforcement officers across Washington, D.C., has already stopped vicious criminals, the distribution of deadly narcotics and the violent use of stolen handguns,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News.
“President Trump’s bold leadership and decisive action will make our nation’s capital beautiful and safe again for its residents and visitors from all the world. The president’s efforts to crack down on crime is an incredibly popular policy that everyday Americans support.”
Trump plans to crack down on crime in Washington, D.C., by sending in federal law enforcement to patrol the city, but statistics show that the nation’s capital is plagued by violent crime when compared to other metropolitan regions around the country.
In a news conference on Monday, Trump announced that he intends to deploy National Guard personnel to the city’s streets while seizing control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to restore safety and combat violence.
“That’s when the federal government comes in, and they review a police department,” Porcher told Fox News Digital. “And they’ll make a series of recommendations based on what the police department is not doing.”
Porcher pointed to the ability of federal law enforcement to collaborate with local authorities in crime-ridden cities to reform a department’s response to violence.
“A lot of task force activity would be the key component,” Porcher said. “So, what the feds can do is send a series of FBI, DEA, or ATF agents to a particular city, and they would be a part of a task force that works with the localized police departments. The resources would bridge together from both the city and the federal government to target the excessive crimes that are being committed in that particular area, whether it’s homicides, robberies, or burglaries.”