Trouble’s brewing in D.C. as two SC National Guardsmen get spit on | Opinion
Help me understand something.
Economist E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wants to stop doing the agency’s closely-watched monthly jobs reports and switch to quarterly presentations to get more accurate data and better analysis of the numbers the nation relies on.
But the administration also wants to take credit for a falling crime rate in Washington, D.C., just two or three weeks after the president militarized the U.S. capital by having governors in South Carolina and five other states send National Guard troops to help the police make more arrests.
If you believe crime rates are measured in days, I’d like to sell you the Gervais Street Bridge.
People who prepare crime statistics prefer to look at them over longer periods of time — typically six months or a year — and then compare those longer stretches to recent ones. So they look at mid-year crime data from January to June and compare it to the same period in the prior year, or they compare the past year’s crime statistics to averages over the most recent five years.
Yet there the president was Monday, taking credit for instant success, inaccurately it turned out.
“In the last 11 days, we’ve had no murders and that’s the first time that’s taken place in years, actually years,” he said. Later, he added, “So for 11 days there have been no murders. The record goes back years where that’s happened. They haven’t seen that happen in years.”
The homicide-free streak in the nation’s capital hit 12 days before ending this week, but FactCheck.org reported that there was a 16-day period with no homicides earlier this year.
Don’t get me wrong. The Washington, D.C., data shows a definite drop in violent and property crimes as well as in other categories when comparing the crimes in August 2024 to those this month. But sticking to the facts without embellishment has never been Trump’s strong suit.
Time will tell how effective Trump’s intervention is. Time and more accurate data.
Like Antoni said.
To take 12 days in August and compare it to the same 12 days last year is like going on a diet to fit into your swimsuit before a beach vacation where you might drink too many beers and eat too many burgers. You won’t be bragging about your earlier weight loss after that.
A fine line between help and harm
It’s great that crime is down in Washington, D.C. It’s great for the residents and it’s great for the metropolitan police officers who can focus on real crimes if they’re chasing fewer criminals.
But no one should think this is a recipe for lasting success in cities across the country. It’s troubling that two South Carolina National Guardsmen were spit on by someone this week as the president considers moving troops to other big American cities.
It’s also troubling that Trump is only targeting blue cities. He has given no sign he’d even consider sending National Guard troops to U.S. cities in red states with Republican mayors where violent or property crimes can be higher than the national average, like, say, Columbia.
Cracking down on crime based on the party affiliation of a governor or mayor is just ludicrous.
Also, it can be a fine line between help and harm — and the beauty of the country’s National Guard, which has earned Americans’ trust over decades for its response during real emergencies, is that it is widely seen as a group that will help fellow Americans, not harm them.
Don’t take my word for it, of course. Listen to the concerns of some people with military training.
Listen to eight-year Army National Guard veteran Christopher Purdy. His service included the aftermath of 9/11 and he is now CEO of a veterans’ advocacy group called the Chamberlain Network. He told NPR’s Morning Edition this week that, “We’re speaking to members of the National Guard right now who have been deployed and are at risk of being called up, and there is real worry within the Guard that they will be misused against American citizens.”
Listen to retired naval officer Theodore R. Johnson, who recalled images of National Guard troops on New Orleans streets in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit and wrote this week in The Washington Post it “taught that in a humanitarian crisis, especially in the United States with the National Guard on the scene, you shouldn’t be armed if the mission is to lend a helping hand.”
Johnson wrote that when Army Gen. Russel Honoré took charge of the military task force after Katrina, he told the troops, “Put those damn weapons down. This is a rescue mission, dammit.”
A Q&A by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in the nation’s capital, is headlined, “Sending the National Guard into D.C. is the wrong solution to a crime problem.”
In plain English, the post says, “Military forces are unsuited for law enforcement and can easily make the problem worse. A better approach would be to strengthen the D.C. police, the right tool for fighting crime.” Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park say a militaristic approach is wrong for three reasons. It’s hard not to see the wisdom of the argument. Just think about it.
One, troops “are less familiar than police with the nuances of citizens’ rights and the conditions under which force is permissible.” Two, troops “have the wrong attitude about civilians” because “law enforcement is trained to see civilians as citizens who deserve protection, except in the most extreme circumstances,” and “military personnel are taught to treat civilians as potential threats and to always be ready to respond.” Third, troops are there to remove a threat and aren’t trained “in the complexities of gathering evidence and building a case that will stand up in court.”
In the U.S., the answer to crime isn’t to send in the military. It’s to beef up law enforcement.
Yet many Americans are OK with armed soldiers patrolling big city streets, even if only in major American cities run by a political party other than the one controlling the U.S. government.
Trash removal and groundskeeping
In Washington, D.C., the 2,000 or so members of the National Guard deployed as part of President Trump’s crime crackdown spent part of this week doing trash removal and groundskeeping. Is that what we want the National Guard focused on during hurricane season?
As one Guard member told The Washington Post, “I think it’s nice, as a D.C. resident. But there are different things we could be doing.”
That sort of custodial work used to be done by the National Park Service, but it’s been gutted by Trump administration budget cuts. The service used to have 200 people assigned to maintain thousands of acres of trees and gardens in D.C., and now there are 20, an official told the Post.
For this, we need the National Guard?
Another development this week was that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the National Guard troops to carry weapons with them during this deployment and Trump authorized Hegseth to “ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment.”
Trump’s executive order sought to “immediately create and begin training, manning, hiring, and equipping a specialized unit that is dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the Nation’s capital that can be deployed whenever the circumstances necessitate, and that could be deployed, subject to applicable law, in other cities where public safety and order has been lost.”
“In other cities where public safety and order has been lost” sounds ripe for political abuse.
The question isn’t whether National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., should be armed with weapons or rakes. It’s whether the National Guard should be doing anything in the district at all.
Don’t spit on the National Guard
Two weeks ago, I invoked the 1970 Kent State tragedy in a column questioning the National Guard’s deployment in Washington, D.C., and I asked readers to let me know where they stand.
They did. Some agreed with me. Some did not.
“This is nothing but leftist whining,” one reader wrote. “There is no comparison between NG troops shooting Ohio students and Washington peacekeeping. Washington residents are apparently quite relieved to see homeless squats go away and to have more peaceful streets. You can’t fault that, so you whine and nitpick about how it was accomplished. Washington Democrats couldn’t deliver and wouldn’t deliver. Trump is, and polls show it.”
“Very happy to read about President Trump’s crackdown on crime in DC,” another reader wrote. “Killing, rapes, carjacking, robbery, looting and attacking law enforcement needs this remedy. We are South Carolina proud of assisting to make DC safe again. Being soft on crime only encourages criminals to exploit the system and destroy residents and businesses in those areas. The law, rules and regulations must be followed.”
Most of the people I heard from, though, were worried about what would happen.
“NO NO NO! This is NOT what America wants,” came one email. “Nazi Germany precursor. Please keep at it.”
“Thank you for your opinion piece regarding the sending of SC national guardsmen to DC for President Trump’s ridiculous use,” came another.
“Surely there are many people out there that haven’t thought through the full ramifications of the president stationing troops in American cities with powers to ‘detain’ residents purportedly for crime control,” came a third.
This week, a man was arrested for spitting on two Guardsmen from South Carolina outside D.C.’s Union Station. He was charged with felony assault, but it’s anyone’s guess whether the charge will stick. Federal prosecutors have repeatedly been unable to get grand juries in D.C. to indict in comparable cases amid the crime crackdown. In one case, a former Justice Department employee threw a sandwich at a federal officer and the grand jury refused to indict.
No one should be spitting on the National Guard or throwing sandwiches at federal officers. There are more civil, less aggressive ways to protest against fellow Americans who are merely doing their duty to state and country, and you shouldn’t waste a good sandwich.
In all seriousness, the situation will only get worse if the president sends troops to other cities.
What happens when the military forces leave? What happens if the military forces never leave?
Matthew T. Hall is McClatchy’s South Carolina opinion editor. Email him at mhall@thestate.com.