DC Police Union chairman endorses Trump's measures: 'Crime is out of control'

Gregg Pemberton, chairman of the D.C. Police Union, publicly backed Donald Trump's measures to control crime in the nation's capital. Pemberton also criticized the Comprehensive Police and Justice Reform Act, passed in 2020 and ratified in 2022 by the City Council.

At a press conference on Monday, the president announced that he was invoking Section 740 of the Home Rule Act of 1973, which allows him to assume control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for a period of 48 hours, with the possibility of extending to 30 days. In turn, he deployed National Guard troops to the streets. Accompanied by other cabinet members such as Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi, Trump assured that these measures would help bring the city under control.

Hours after the press conference, Pemberton backed Trump's announcements, remarking that crime in D.C. is "out of control."

"I agree with the president that crime in the District of Columbia is out of control and something needs to be done with it. We have to go back to how we got here, though. In 2020, the D.C. City Council passed an enormous amount of legislation that handcuffed police officers exposes them to administrative, civil, and even criminal liability, even when they do their jobs properly," Pemberton told Fox News.

"And now, five years later, our authorized sworn strength is 4,000 sworn police officers. We currently have 3,180. So we have more than 800 vacancies for the position of police officer. And the way the department makes up for that gap is through 2 million hours of mandatory overtime every year. So the fact that we need help from federal law enforcement and maybe even the National Guard, it shouldn't come as a surprise. And we agree with that," he added.