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By MELISSA GOLDIN
In addition to pardoning two North Carolina turkeys at the annual White House ceremony Tuesday, President Donald Trump discussed his crime-fighting efforts in Washington, D.C., claiming that it’s been months since the city has seen a murder.
But Metropolitan Police Department statistics say otherwise.
Trump deployed National Guard troops to Washington in August in an effort to curb violent crime even though it had already reached its lowest levels in decades.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
TRUMP: “We haven’t had a murder in six months.”
THE FACTS: That’s false. There have been 62 homicides in Washington since May 25, including one last week, according to the MPD. The city has seen 123 homicides so far in 2025. Since National Guard troops were deployed to Washington on Aug. 11, there have been 24. In some data, only 61 homicides were reported in the last six months, and only 23 since Aug. 11, because of a technical error, the MPD said.
Asked for comment on Trump’s claim, the department said that the statistics speak for themselves.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers stressed Trump’s transformation of Washington “from a crime-ridden mess into a beautiful, clean, safe city” when asked about the discrepancy between his claim and city data. She did not address the discrepancy directly.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to end its monthslong deployment of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb found that Trump’s military takeover illegally intrudes on local officials’ authority to direct law enforcement in the district. The order is on hold for 21 days to allow for appeal.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb in September sued to challenge the Guard deployments. He asked the judge to bar the White House from deploying Guard troops without the mayor’s consent while the lawsuit plays out.
During the turkey pardoning, Trump said Washington “is now considered a safe zone,” making the erroneous claim that “we haven’t seen a murder in six months.”
A Department of Justice report from January showed that total violent crime in 2024 was at the lowest it had been in more than 30 years, including a 32% drop in homicides from 2023, when it experienced a post-pandemic peak.
Homicides in the past six months are down 46% from the same period last year, while homicides since the August deployment are down 38% from the previous period, MPD data shows. There has been a 29% decrease in homicides in 2025 to date compared to 2024.
Violent crime during the National Guard’s initial one-month surge in Washington was down 39% from the same period last year, including a 53% drop in homicides, with seven during the surge, compared to 15 during the same timespan in 2024.
Arson is the only type of crime that has not seen a decrease, with a 0% change from last year to this year.
The city’s statistics came into question, however, after federal authorities opened an investigation into allegations that officials altered some of the data to make it look better. The investigation is ongoing.
Associated Press writers Gary Fields and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.
Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
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