“Washington, D.C. went from a hellhole to a safe place,” Trump said as he looks to send 300 National Guard troops to Chicago.
WASHINGTON — Despite two deadly shootings over the weekend, President Donald Trump claimed that his federal surge on Washington had solved all crime inside the District as the president looked to preview National Guard deployments to other U.S. cities.
The president’s claims, delivered to reporters outside the White House on Sunday, came within hours after Metropolitan Police Department identified a 17-year-old boy from Northeast and a 26-year-old man from Northwest as the shooting victims from over the weekend.
“We’ve got no crime,” Trump claimed. “It took 12 days to solve the problem. And we’re going to do that in Chicago, we’re going to do that in Portland.”
Jermaine Durbin was the 17-year-old identified by MPD on Sunday. According to police, the teen was shot on the 600 block of Rhode Island Avenue Northeast — nearby the Rhode Island – Brentwood Metro station — at around 7:20 p.m. on Friday. By the time, DC Fire and EMS got the scene of the shooting, he was dead.
Then, early Saturday morning, 26-year-old Jerome Myles was shot and killed on the 1400 block of Clifton Street Northwest.
Myles was pronounced dead by DC Fire and EMS after their crews arrived at the scene.
Police were still looking for the Durbin’s killer on Sunday afternoon. And were still looking for a second suspect in the shooting death of Whitaker.
MPD arrested Antoine Whitaker, a 35-year-old from Northeast, charging him with first-degree murder while armed for allegedly killing Myles. Although MPD noted that responding officers said they saw two people fleeing the scene of the Northwest shooting, before entering a nearby apartment building.
Trump’s delivered his claims about D.C. crime on Sunday while discussing his intention to deploy 300 National Guard troops to Chicago and the subsequent backlash from Gov. JB Pritzker (D-Ill.)
“They need help,” Trump said of Pritzker and other leaders in Illinois and Chicago. “Washington, D.C. is now a safe place. You’re not going to get mugged or hit. You’re not going to get raped, you’re not going to get anything. Washington, D.C. went from a hellhole to a safe place.”
A federal judge in Oregon issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration as the president looked to send National Guard troops to Portland, the west coast state’s largest city.
The day the federal surge started, on Aug. 11, violent crime in Washington had already been trending down at 26%, with homicides down 12% from the prior year. Those statistics had marginally improved since the federal surge, with MPD reporting on Friday, a 28% drop in violent crime and a 22% drop in homicides when compared with this time last year.
WUSA9 counted six homicides reported by MPD during the 30-day federal surge.
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