D.C. leaders credit city initiatives for crime plunge, not actions from White House or Congress

The District of Columbia’s three top elected officials told Congress on Thursday that local efforts, not federal interventions from Congress or the White House, deserve the credit for a major drop in crime.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, all Democrats, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the 30-year low in violent crime was the product of coordinated efforts among each of their offices.

President Trump’s crime crackdown merely hastened those successes, the D.C. officials said, and congressional legislation to influence the District’s police and courts was overkill.

“We enhanced penalties for crimes like assault and violent crimes committed on transit and in our parks and recreation centers,” Mr. Mendelson said. “We increased the use of pretrial detention for individuals arrested for violent offenses and made it easier to prosecute carjacking.

“These interventions have paid off. Violent crime overall is down more than 50% compared to 2023. Carjackings are down nearly 70%,” the council chairman said.

Congressional lawmakers at the hearing praised and skewered several Republican-sponsored bills to restructure the District’s criminal justice system.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts Democrat, bashed a bill that would make juveniles as young as 14 eligible to be charged as adults.

She said the legislation, which passed the House and is now before the Senate, would disproportionately criminalize Black youths.

Rep. Pete Sessions, the Texas Republican whose separate bill empowering the president to nominate D.C. Superior Court judges passed the House on Wednesday, said he was looking for a more efficient way to fix the large number of vacant judgeships.

He said some seats have been left unfilled for nearly 13 years.

Another bill seeks to make the city’s attorney general position federally appointed rather than a locally elected post, largely because of what lawmakers called a lack of proper punishment for juvenile criminals.

Rep. William Timmons, South Carolina Republican, mentioned the deadly carjacking of Mohammad Anwar, a food delivery driver who was attacked by 13- and 15-year-old girls in 2021.

The teenage car thieves, who had prior arrests, sped off while Anwar was standing in the doorframe and trying to regain control of his vehicle. He was killed when the girls flipped over the car about two blocks from where he was carjacked.

Mr. Timmons blasted a D.C. law allowing the girls to be imprisoned only until they are 21.

Mr. Schwalb, whose office prosecutes most juvenile crimes in the District, defended the law. “Under our system, long punishments are not what has been proven to deter” crime, he said.

Mr. Timons warned him that such an attitude “is why you’re going to lose authority. You’re going to lose power.”

Ten D.C.-focused crime bills have not come up for a vote in the House.

Ms. Bowser and Mr. Mendelson said Mr. Trump’s federal crackdown produced a noticeable reduction in the city’s violent crime. The mayor noted that it made the biggest impact on the spike of carjackings that contributed so heavily to the 2023 crime wave.

The monthlong federal surge resulted in more than 2,300 arrests and double-digit declines in homicides, robberies and carjackings.

The D.C. officials said the president’s operation merely accelerated a crime decline already set into motion by their local actions. Ms. Bowser said the deployment of roughly 2,000 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital has not been a positive development in tamping down violence and disorder.

“What has worked is not the National Guard in helping enhance Metropolitan Police services,” the mayor said. “What has worked is more [Drug Enforcement Administration], more FBI.”

One of Mr. Trump’s main arguments for initiating the federal surge was his suspicion that the Metropolitan Police Department’s crime numbers were being manipulated. He frequently mentioned the ongoing investigation into Commander Michael Pulliam, who is accused of jiggering police statistics by classifying more serious crimes as lesser offenses to make the city appear less dangerous.

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, mentioned a claim from the D.C. Police Union chairman that lieutenants and captains direct officers at crime scenes to downgrade the offenses for official records to less than what the facts might sustain.

Mr. Mendelson told Mr. Jordan that he believed the union was lying about that claim, leaving Mr. Jordan briefly stunned.

Republicans largely heralded the success of Mr. Trump’s crackdown.

Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the oversight committee, said the president’s surge nullified the city’s soft-on-crime policies that gave the District one of the highest homicide rates in the country.

“President Trump’s operation was a resounding success and a shining example of how smart-on-crime policies can keep the residents of and visitors to our nation’s capital safe,” he said.

Congressional Democrats continued to argue that the president’s law enforcement surge infringed on the federal city’s autonomy.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Democrat, called the monthlong crime emergency a “fascist takeover.”

That drew a sharp rebuke from Rep. Byron Donalds, the Florida Republican whose bill barring young adult convicts from receiving light sentences similar to juveniles was passed this week.

“She’s going to refer to me and my colleague like we were from the Third Reich,” said Mr. Donalds, who is Black. “It’s insane. Do I look like a member of the Third Reich to you, Ms. Tlaib? Is that what I look like to you?”

The two shouted over each other for a solid minute before Mr. Comer could restore order.

It was one of many detours in the hearing intended to talk about crime in the nation’s capital, mostly from Democratic members mentioning Mr. Trump’s felony convictions in New York last year and his ties to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.