During a press briefing on Wednesday, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser claimed that President Trump's surge of federal law enforcement does not constitute a takeover of Washington, D.C.
00:00So the suspicion of manipulating numbers is not new.
00:07In 2018, Fox 5 also reported on similar accusation going through several FOIA requests and a lot of data as well.
00:14My question to you is, what's the plan here?
00:17How do you show the federal government that you're on tap and on top of and able to respond to what's going on?
00:22I think we can respond pretty simply.
00:25I'm not sure yet what questions we've gotten, so I'll just leave it the same.
00:30I think that we will cooperate and answer their questions.
00:32You were next, I think.
00:34Do you have any reaction to the Attorney General tweeted out this morning that the U.S. Marshal Service is now offering $500 to anyone who gives information that leads to an arrest in the district?
00:43Do you have any reaction to that?
00:44I don't have a reaction.
00:46We have a rewards program here for information that leads to prosecutions and certain crimes.
00:53And we have a very active program, and that has worked.
00:57Do you think that they're putting resources in the right places in the city?
01:02I think that that is something that we evaluate daily.
01:06Yep.
01:06Arthur Jones, the second one, ABC News.
01:09Do you worry about students' attendance on Monday with the president's federal takeover?
01:15And also, is local...
01:16Let me stop you there.
01:18There has been no takeover.
01:21The president's surge and crackdown.
01:23Okay, so with the federal surge in the city, part of what we just talked to educators about, we're on a campus on this hill where three schools attend.
01:37So we had, you know, probably a little over 100 teachers represented today.
01:42And what I want to be clear to all of them about is our children deserve and will get a joyful start to their school year.
01:51So all the adults in our building, all of the people in our government are focused on making sure that that happens.
01:59I'm also asking D.C. residents whether they have kids in school or not.
02:04This is a tradition that we have for many years, but I think it would be great if D.C. residents line corridors and clap, we call it clap the kids into school.
02:18So tell them that we're with them.
02:21We want them to have a great school year.
02:23And we're all going to be standing shoulder to shoulder with them.
02:28As the Metropolitan Police Department worked with the federal agencies, any communication there to help kids get to school in high crime areas?
02:37We don't need federal agencies to help get kids to school.
02:41So we have many programs, including a kids ride free program where all of our children have a free pass to ride free back and forth to school in their school activities.
02:54We have a program called Safe Passage, where we have non-law enforcement officials that line various school routes.
03:03They will all have on a jacket that identifies them as part of D.C. government, one of our violence interruption programs.
03:11We have another program called School Connect, where families can let us know if there are particular circumstances that they're concerned about with their neighborhood, where they can get a ride to school.
03:28So we will take care of getting our kids to school.
03:32I'm not going to come back to you right now because other questions.
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