D.C. Councilmember on Trump’s Crackdown: “Not the Appropriate Response”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, to the streets of Washington, D.C. where National Guard troops have been deployed. President Trump vows to, quote, “take our capital back.” It’s unclear who or what from though. A statistic show, crime numbers falling, not spiking. While some support the move, others question its legality. D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto was elected in 2020 as the youngest councilmember in the district’s history, and she’s joining Michel Martin to break down the administration’s claims.

 

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Christiane. Councilmember Brooke Pinto. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

 

BROOKE PINTO: Thanks for having me today.

 

MARTIN: So councilmember, a lot of people watching this program won’t understand how it’s even possible for the president to take over a local police force, even even for 30 days. So as briefly as you can, can you explain how it is that that is possible?

 

PINTO: Yes. But let me first be very clear. The president has not taken over our police force. Our local police force is still run by Chief Smith, who is the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department in DC and they report to Mayor Bowser. And we at the council have oversight over them. That has not changed — 

 

MARTIN: So with that clarification, how is it even possible to do whatever it is he says he’s doing? 

 

PINTO: Yes. 

 

MARTIN: To federalize the police even for 30 days, which is what the law currently permits.

 

PINTO: Right. So, DC is a very unique jurisdiction in the United States of America. We are not a state. We are a federal district and we function city, county, and state functions kind of all in one. And in 1973, Congress passed the Home Rule Act that essentially authorized the District to have our own local government to manage the city, to manage what has now become a $22 billion budget, to manage our own police, our schools, our streets, and to provide for the wellbeing of the over 700,000 District residents who call DC home. 

Now, there is a provision of the Home Rule charter that allows the president in a period of an emergency — which is broadly defined — that he can or she can call on services from the Metropolitan Police Department for a period of 30 days. So he, in his executive order — that’s what the language says, it mirrors what we have in the Home Rule Act — that says we are establishing that there’s an emergency in Washington DC that allows the federal government to call on services from MPD. But the Metropolitan Police Department is still run by our local government.

 

MARTIN: Can we just sort of take this sort of piece by piece? First of all, do you agree that there is an emergency?

 

PINTO: Every person should be safe in Washington DC, whether you live here, whether you are working here, whether you’re a tourist or anywhere in the world. And we have made a lot of progress when it comes to public safety, especially in the last couple of years. 

I chair the council’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. And I put together last year the single largest piece of public safety legislation in our city’s history that had over 100 different interventions to prevent crime, to hold perpetrators of crime accountable, to improve government coordination. And since we’ve passed that law, we have seen our violent crime go down by nearly 50%. And we have the lowest violent crime numbers we’ve had in 30 years. 

Now I do believe there is more work to do to ensure that no matter what neighborhood you live in in Washington DC you are safe. And I am laser focused on continuing that work on behalf of our local government to ensure that’s a reality. But to declare that there is an emergency is not the appropriate response from the federal government who we need to be our partners in other ways, not in this way.

 

MARTIN: What went through your mind when you saw and presumably watched the president’s press conference?

 

PINTO: Well, first he seemed to be talking about a city that is not my own. He was talking about a city where nobody is safe, where nobody can walk down the streets. That’s not the experience of the vast majority of district residents who are wonderful, contributing members of society, who are part of our thriving and beautiful city. And it also seemed to be something that sounded good to him, that sounds like a quick fix. But crime is complicated. And it needs serious solutions to address a serious problem. 

For instance, he talked about that our police department has enough officers. Well, I fundamentally disagree with him there. I think we need hundreds of more officers but that are through our Metropolitan Police Department, meaning they get trained through our police academy, the best in the country. Meaning they know our local DC laws and the unique interplay with the federal government. Meaning they wear body-worn cameras and are accountable to the people of DC if there’s an issue. And so just to say we’re gonna have hundreds of National Guardsmen going through the streets who are not trained for this and is not a good use of taxpayer dollars, to me, sounds like an easy fix that’s not actually gonna solve the serious problems that we have. <crosstalk>

 

MARTIN: What do you think the serious problem is? I mean, the immediate predicate of this action seems to be that a member of that ad hoc group that the president appointed to seek what they claimed was waste, fraud, and abuse, or the Department of Government Efficiency, which was headed by Elon Musk and populated by a number of, you know, very young people who went, you know, after federal agencies looking for ways to cut them — and did, and did. The immediate predicate seems to be that a member of this team was assaulted, you know, early in the morning after, you know, a night out. But there have been other sort of disturbing incidents, you know, in the District. What’s your understanding of what the particular thing is that motivates this?

 

PINTO: We have got to get the illegal guns off the street. That is the consistent element in so many of these cases that we’re seeing around the country, and Washington DC is no different. There are illegal guns flowing in, and we need the federal government — if they wanna be helpful when it comes to public safety, we need them to pass common sense gun control reforms. And we need them to do that in our neighboring state of Virginia as well, which we’re seeing the vast majority of these illegal guns come from. So that is, that is a huge part that cannot be missed here. 

But, you know, I don’t know what motivates the president. I can’t speak for him. I think that your estimation is probably accurate, that there was, you know, a person he knew or that was tied to his administration, and therefore this is the impetus. (09:38): But it doesn’t mirror the facts on the ground that violent crime is decreasing each month that we’re at a 30 year low. 

With that said, I don’t wanna belittle the very real experience of victims of crime in DC. And while we are trending in the right direction, there is more to do. What I’m saying is there are other better, more effective avenues to do it: through our local laws, through the Senate — actually confirming the judges that we have many vacancies on our local courts — through our US attorney prosecuting these cases and not declining cases, by Congress filling the $1 billion budget gap that they took from our locally-raised funding source for no apparent reason that disallows us from paying our police and firefighters, but we believe they should be paid…

 

MARTIN: At his press conference, the president said the city was overrun by “blood thirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people.” What do you say to that?

 

PINTO: I mean, not only is that language so offensive for so many reasons, but it’s not the serious work of government. The government is here to solve problems. And we know that very well in local government. We see problems and we solve them. That’s what we’re in the business of doing. 

So when it comes to homelessness, for instance we did have a major spike in people living outside, following the pandemic. That was a result of a number of things, including the CDC saying it wasn’t safe to live in congregate settings. And so hundreds of people moved outside and were living in encampments. Now, I visited those encampments and I put together a plan with my colleagues, with the mayor with homeless services providers, and we started what we called the CARE pilot where we went to the largest encampment sites, and we said, for a period of 30 days, we’re gonna provide you with the services you need. We’re gonna connect you to housing, we’re gonna connect you to mental health supports if you need it, physical supports. But then at the end of the 30 days, we’re closing down the park to camping. When we did that, we saw 84% of those people move indoors to permanent housing. 

I started another new model in Ward Two, where I represent, just last year for transitional bridge housing to say, okay, If you’re living outside, as you’re waiting for a permanent apartment or voucher to become available, you can come inside and get full-time case management and support and meals. It’s called transitional bridge housing that we now have and we’re seeing major success. 

So we have to do more as the nation’s capital to ensure that every person can live indoors and with dignity. I do not think it’s appropriate or safe for anyone to be living outside in Washington, D.C. But there’s a process to do so with compassion and with dignity and with an eye towards sustainability to set someone up for success. 

 

MARTIN: Jeanine Pirro, who is the former Fox News personality who has recently been confirmed as US Attorney for the District of Columbia. She said, at the same press conference where the president announced this initiative that nobody has — she sees a problem with young people, right. Specifically, she says “no one has been arresting them because the superior courts in my office has no jurisdiction over them because the DC Council has literally prevented my office from prosecuting anyone who’s 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, even if they shoot you with a gun.” And she says, “I have no authority to arrest them.” Can you speak to that, the truth or falsity of that claim?

 

PINTO: Sure. First let me say I work with US Attorney Pirro, just as I have worked with every US attorney because we have this unique relationship with the federal government that they handle in the federally appointed US attorney’s office adult prosecutions. Our locally elected attorney general, as you mentioned, handles juvenile prosecutions. That’s not because of some law the DC Council passed. That’s the way that our structure has been for quite some time. 

It is absolutely inaccurate to say that a young person cannot be arrested. MPD makes arrests every day for people, whether you’re a juvenile committing an offense or an adult committing an offense. And if you’re a juvenile, it will go through the US — the Attorney General’s office. And if you’re an adult, it goes through the US Attorney’s office. So that’s inaccuracy number one.

Second, the US attorney often brings cases against juveniles in federal court, which allows them to take over jurisdiction of certain cases, especially cases that were committed with a weapon or had a lot of victims. And so that is already practice that happens with previous US attorney and the current US attorney. 

I also have to say the vast majority of young people in our city are doing amazing things and are not involved in any sort of crime at all, are learning, are playing with one another, and are being kids. And so I, I want your viewers to understand that Washington DC has over 700,000 residents, including kids who are wonderful people and members of our community. The majority of violent crimes are still being committed by men between the ages of 18 and 35. So this idea that it’s all juveniles is also false. 

 

MARTIN: So is your basic take on this, on the Trump administration’s initiative here, that it’s unnecessary or that it is deleterious in its own way? Or is it just the idea is offensive to people who are actually in leadership, in local government?

 

PINTO: Sending in National Guards to our city who are untrained in our local laws, don’t understand our neighborhoods and our challenges, is undermining to public safety, to our police department that has worked tirelessly to build up trust and collaboration with communities across DC to drive down violent crime.

 

MARTIN: Are you worried at all that there’s a mixed message here? It’s also the case that the president pardoned all of the people who were involved in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, which injured 140 law enforcement officers, including 60 officers at the Metropolitan Police Department, right. Some of whom were so severely injured that they could not return to their, to their duties, okay, so are you worried that there’s a mixed message here?

 

PINTO: Oh, absolutely. The entire thing is so inconsistent. It’s also used to be the Republican Party that supported decisions being made by the local government and de-bloating the federal government. And that’s gone out the window with this administration as well. It is not responsible and it is not serious business. I’m always concerned about a mixed message like that, but what my responsibility is, is to the residents of Washington DC with the added responsibility that we are the nation’s capital and we should be safe to every person who comes here and who lives here. And I am always gonna be focused on continuing the progress we’ve made to ensure that safety is a reality for everyone. And we’re gonna do so with the tools and resources that we have in our unique situation as a non-state in Washington DC.

 

MARTIN: Somebody listening to this conversation might wonder, why should I care about this? If I don’t live in the District of Columbia, don’t plan a visit anytime soon, why do I care?

 

PINTO: Because government at its core should be here to solve problems and help people and making our local city — or any jurisdiction across the United States of America — essentially a military zone, so you can sound like you’re doing something on public safety, is extremely frightening and disconcerting, and is not the America that I am proud of and not the America that I know residents across this country wanna live in. Every person deserves to be safe. Every person deserves to have opportunity, and every person deserves to have a government, whether that’s your local government, your state government, your federal government who is working on your behalf, on serious solutions to solve the problems of your everyday life. And this is not a serious solution. And it’s what’s so troublesome to me. 

And so today it’s happening in Washington DC. We all need to have each other’s backs in this country and get to a place where we can come back together. This shouldn’t be so either or. (41:05): I don’t want Democrats to be put in this position following this action of saying, There’s no crime at all and there’s no challenges with public safety. That’s not accurate either. And that’s why I’m being very clear that we do have challenges when it comes to public safety. We’re not in a crime emergency, we’re not having a crime spike. We’re having the lowest violent crime in 30 years. But there is more work to do. And that’s the serious work of government. And that’s the work that I’m interested in doing every day alongside all my council colleagues, our mayor and our attorney general.

 

MARTIN: That is DC Councilmember Brooke Pinto. Councilmember, thank you so much for speaking with us.

 

PINTO: Thanks for having me.