D.C. lawmakers who hoped that Tuesday’s election results would help them clear hundreds of National Guard troops from the city learned Thursday that the Pentagon plans to send more military equipment for soldiers patrolling the nation’s capital.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the fleet upgrades — which include Humvees, boats, tactical military trucks and marked patrol cars — through the end of the year, according to an internal memo from Oct. 29 obtained Thursday by The Washington Post. National Guard members have typically traversed the city in vans.
The plans were revealed on the same day the D.C. Council’s public safety committee chair, Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), said she planned to ask incoming Democratic governors to end Guard deployments to Washington.
Pinto said the Pentagon memo showed that the administration “is going in the opposite direction we need to be going.”
“This is not where we want to be as a city,” she said. “We need to be investing in our local police department.”
The memo authorized the National Guard to use unarmed boats to conduct “perimeter security protecting law enforcement officers as they conduct operations against gang leaders or drug traffickers in the vicinity of Anacostia Park.”
It clarified that a federal law enforcement officer must be on the boat, which could be used to “help arrest a criminal suspect” who tries to flee by “jumping into the Anacostia River.”
Testifying at Pinto’s hearing, interim D.C. police chief Jeffery Carroll said he learned about the memo Thursday from news reports. The memo’s contents were first reported by Politico.
Carroll said he didn’t know what the implications would be for his department.
“I haven’t heard anything about that, nor I am familiar with any boat operations in the Anacostia over drug dealers,” he said.
The Joint Task Force-D.C., which oversees the Guard’s deployment as part of President Donald Trump’s surge of federal authorities in the city, referred questions about the memo to Hegseth’s office.
An email from the Pentagon press office confirmed details in the memo and said that Hegseth “has authorized the continued use of National Guard personnel and capabilities in support of the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful mission.”
National Guard members, who do not have law enforcement powers, have patrolled the District in teams meant to deter and prevent crime. They have also accompanied Joint Task Force teams of federal agents and local police. They can’t make arrests but are allowed to detain suspects until officers arrive.
Some D.C. residents have protested the patrols and demanded that they end.
At Pinto’s hearing, they spoke for hours, at times emotionally, about how they have seen their neighbors and children become traumatized by the increased law enforcement presence blanketing the District.
Many of those who testified were especially incensed about patrols and staging that took place earlier this year near D.C. schools.
National Guard members, meanwhile, have been on the receiving end of that disapproval. While they’re most visible lingering around landmarks and Metro stations, the job sometimes puts them in harm’s way.
Last month, a Guard member was injured in a shootout after responding to a fight outside a hookah bar, according to police. Last year, one National Guard member was fatally shot, and another critically wounded, in a targeted ambush.
Recent incidents with the troops have prompted more criticism of their involvement.
In September, a National Guard member was held in the D.C. jail on a felony charge after allegedly unholstering his loaded firearm and pointing it at another Guard member during an argument in a van.
And earlier this week, Guard members detained and had D.C. police arrest a 28-year-old they accused of making a “shooting gesture with a finger gun” at them.
Carroll, after several rounds of questions from council members, offered a more pointed critique of some of the heavier shows of force in D.C. in recent months.
“We don’t want kids to have to see military members with guns outside their school and stuff like that,” he said in response to a question from Pinto.
The interim police chief said the fallout from the law enforcement surge has damaged the department’s reputation in the eyes of some community members.
“When this task force ends,” he said, “we’ll still be here.”
Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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