Donald Trump is causing a stir after announcing a major change to police rights as they attempt to combat crime.
Trump is no stranger to controversy, but his latest announcement has people fearful that the worse is yet to come under his leadership.
While Trump remains a divisive figure, some of his critics are now calling for his impeachment as his actions go beyond a slippery slope.
At the start of the week, the president announced he was enacting drastic plans to fight crime and make Washington ‘great again’. Trump made it clear there would be no ‘Mr Nice Guy’ in this endeavor and has even ordered the homeless to ‘move out immediately’. He has also made some eyebrow-raising claims about the capital.
Writing on Truth Social, he said: “Before the tents, squalor, filth, and Crime, it was the most beautiful Capital in the World. It will soon be that again.”
He has also said Washington is a ‘sanctuary for illegal alien criminals’ that has become marred by ‘lawlessness’ to the point it’s become ‘one of the most dangerous cities in the world’, with homicide rates higher than the likes of Bogotá or Mexico City.
This differs from official statistics however, which show DC has a 30-year low in violent crime.
Most concerningly, during a press conference, Trump said: “That’s the only language they [alleged criminals] understand. They like to spit in the face of the police. You spit, and we hit, and they can hit real hard.
“It’s a disgusting thing, I’ve watched that for years – police are told, ‘don’t do anything’ and people are spitting in their face and they’re not allowed to do anything, but now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.”
Writing on social media, some people have called Trump’s aggressive crackdown ‘evil’ if it gives the police powers to ‘do whatever the hell they want’, with some also calling for the president’s impeachment.
Following this announcement, NBC4 reporter Mark Segraves reflected on what people could expect and how official bodies will react.
He said: “The President threatened not only to bring in the national guard but the military to Washington DC, if that becomes necessary.
“Again, that would just be another historic move and just a blow to home rule here in the district.
“We do not know exactly when the national guard troops will hit the street, we don’t know where they will be deployed, we don’t know if they will be armed.
“It seems like because the president mentioned the head of US marshals division as being pivotal in this, it seems like the US marshal service will be the one who will deputize the national guard but that was not clearly answered.”
He concluded by saying: “We have never experienced anything like this here in Washington DC or anywhere else in the US where the federal government is taking over a local police department and sending in a national guard troop in to support the police and threatening the use of the US military.”