The Trump administration moved ahead Tuesday with the federal takeover of Washington’s police force, as top administration and city officials met to discuss how they would work together to reduce already falling crime in the nation’s capital.
Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, and her police chief, Pamela Smith, met with Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday morning, and the city officials said they were focused on how to make the most of the additional federal support.
Ms. Bowser said she wanted to make sure the federal force “is being well used, and all in an effort to drive down crime.”
Ms. Bondi, in a post on X, called the meeting “productive” and said the Justice Department “will work closely with” the city and its police department to “make Washington, D.C. safe again.” Ms. Bondi was joined at the meeting by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general; Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director; Jeanne Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.; and top officials from the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The meeting came one day after President Trump invoked a law that allows the president to take control of the city’s police force for up to 30 days. Officials have said that 800 National Guard members and roughly 500 federal law enforcement agents were also being deployed to city streets to help curb crime.
Some of those agents began conducting foot patrols over the weekend. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday that National Guard troops would begin “flowing” into the city this week, although city officials said those personnel would not have the authority to make arrests.
Ms. Bowser declined to revisit Mr. Trump’s decision, a day after she called it “unsettling and unprecedented.” Even as she acknowledged on Monday that the law gave Mr. Trump the authority to take over the department temporarily, she disputed his contention that her administration had done little to address crime in Washington, where violent crime fell sharply in 2024.
But Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said the federalization of the local police would “make our city even better.”
Chief Smith said city officials would “look at the locations around our city where we believe there are areas of pockets of crime that we would like to address.” Residents will see local police officers “working side by side with our federal partners in order to enforce the efforts that we need around the city,” she said.
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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