Tweet
Email
Link
Washington, DC
—
At least ten cities in states whose Republican governors are deploying National Guard troops to Washington, DC, had higher rates of violent crime or homicide than DC last year, according to a CNN review of FBI data.
Governors from Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia announced this week that they’re sending troops to assist President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital. Violent crime was already falling in DC, though it still ranks 17th among major cities.
In the past week, Trump federalized DC’s police force, surged federal law enforcement agents into the city, and deployed the DC National Guard.
Military officials said there were nearly 2,000 soldiers and airmen mobilized in DC as of Thursday afternoon. Governors from the six states previously said they’re contributing about 1,000 troops. And yet, their home states have cities with worse crime rates than DC – like Cleveland, Nashville, and Jackson, Mississippi, which was No. 1 in homicides per capita last year.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said she wants “to make the most of the additional officer support that we have… to drive down crime.” And DC police chief Pamela Smith said, “We have to get illegal guns off of our streets, and if we have this influx or enhanced presence, it’s going to make our city even better.”
Still, many Trump critics – including Democratic lawmakers, liberal activists and criminal justice advocates – have blasted his federal takeover of DC. And they’ve pointed out that some of the states sending National Guard troops have their own crime challenges.
“It speaks to their lack of genuineness,” said Rena Karefa-Johnson, a vice president at FWD.us, a DC-based national criminal justice reform group. “Public safety is being used – as it often is – as a pretext to attack, target and terrorize specific communities. I don’t think any of this really makes any communities safer.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a retiring North Carolina Republican, said in a CBS News interview that GOP governors were “100%” deploying troops to please Trump.
“DC has a crime problem … do we honestly think DC has the worst crime problem in the United States? No,” Tillis said, flagging red-state cities with higher crime rates like Memphis, and criticizing Trump’s federal “micromanaging.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he was sending 150 military police from the Ohio National Guard to DC after a getting request from the secretary of the Army.
Cleveland had the 2nd-highest overall crime rate last year among US cities with more than 250,000 people, according to a CNN review of FBI statistics from 2024. DC was tenth for overall crime and 17th for violent crime in 2024.
When it comes to violent crime specifically – which the FBI defines as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – two additional Ohio cities had higher rates than DC last year: Toledo and Dayton.
“We need those troops here because of what we’re going through,” said Walter Patton, founder of Ghetto Therapy, which connects residents from some of Cleveland’s poorest communities with free mental health services.
A fourth-generation Cleveland resident, Patton lives in Outhwaite Homes public housing and said more resources are needed to keep people safe. This year, Patton noted, the Trump administration canceled a $2 million federal grant for an anti-gang organization that his group partners with in the city.
“We had 13 homicides in my front yard in 2020,” Patton told CNN. “We’re losing the focus on crime in Ohio because of DC’s issues. My heart goes out to DC. But DC should be focused on DC, and Ohio should focus on Ohio.”
A spokesman from DeWine’s office told CNN in an email that “Ohio has traditionally helped the District of Columbia, Ohio mayors, and other states when they request assistance,” including requests from Democratic officials.
The spokesman, Dan Tierney, also said the cities of Cleveland, Toledo and Dayton had all previously requested and received assistance from the Ohio State Highway Patrol “to assist with resource surges to address rising crime.”
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee confirmed Tuesday that he was sending about 160 members of the state’s National Guard to aid Trump’s deployments in DC.
Two cities in Tennessee with populations over 250,000 had higher violent crime rates than DC, according to a CNN review of FBI data. Memphis ranked 1st and Nashville was 12th on the list, five spots ahead of DC.
“Washington, DC, is a creation of the Congress, and I believe it’s within the president’s constitutional purview,” Tennessee GOP Rep. Tim Burchett told CNN’s Dana Bash on Wednesday, adding that he doesn’t believe any troops are needed in Memphis because “it’s not a federally created environment.”
Lee’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment from CNN.
Jeff Warren, a Democratic member of the Memphis City Council, criticized the decision to send Tennessee troops to DC. He conceded that parts of Memphis are dangerous, but said public safety was improving because of Biden-era grants for local anti-violence programs, which the Trump administration is slashing.
“Putting a bunch of troops in the streets will stop violence for now, but it won’t interrupt the cycle,” Warren said. “I’m more worried about them taking away all this money from violence intervention programs in major cities, just as these things have been gearing up and are starting to work.”
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Monday approved sending 135 troops to DC.
Shreveport and Lafeyette are smaller cities, but they both had a higher violent crime rate than DC last year, according to a CNN review of FBI statistics.
Landry’s office did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
“It’s crazy,” Michael McClanahan, president of the NAACP Louisiana State Conference, told CNN in an interview. “We are the incarceration capital of the country. We have so much work to do in our state. And it’s hurricane season. The troops need to be here. Why not address the problems in Louisiana?”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a leading Democratic critic of Trump’s moves, used this data in a recent interview to accuse Trump of authoritarianism.
“He should start with Shreveport,” Newsom said. “What about the carnage, Mr. President, in Shreveport? Why aren’t you protecting the folks there?”
In response, Shreveport’s mayor said Newsom “doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and that we’re in much better shape” than portrayed. The Shreveport police chief said, “California needs to worry about California.”
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is also sending about 200 troops to DC.
Jackson had the nation’s highest homicide rate in 2024 for cities with at least 100,000 people, according to a CNN analysis of FBI statistics and local reports of police data. Last year, Jackson had about 77 homicides for every 100,000 residents, while DC only had about 27, according to the statistics.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who represents parts of Jackson, said Reeves’ deployment was a taxpayer-funded “political stunt” that pulls brave Mississippi troops “away from their homes, families, and critical missions.”
Reeves’ deputy chief of staff Cory Custer told CNN in an email that “it’s wrong to imply that Mississippi cannot support President Trump’s efforts to clean up Washington, D.C., while also working to keep Mississippians safe.”
He said it was a “ridiculous premise” because Reeves signed legislation doubling the size of Mississippi Capitol Police and has presided over an estimated 43% drop in homicides in Jackson compared to this point last year.
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced that, at the request of the Trump administration, he would be sending 300 to 400 “skilled personnel” from the state National Guard to help “restore cleanliness and safety” in DC.
The two largest cities in West Virginia – Charleston and Huntington – each have only about 45,000 residents and are much smaller than DC, which has about 702,000 residents. But statistically, they both had a higher violent crime rate per capita than DC last year, according to CNN’s review of FBI data.
Morrisey’s office did not respond to CNN’s inquiries about the deployments.