00:00President Trump federalized the D.C. Police Department and deployed the National Guard one week ago.
00:06Now, guardsmen, federal agents, and officers are stationed around the district.
00:11Attorney General Pam Bondi announced federal agents and N.P.D. officers have made nearly 400 arrests since the operation began and seized dozens of firearms.
00:20But does D.C. feel any safer? We asked locals.
00:24Have you noticed a difference in safety in this city over the last week?
00:31People like me who work a regular 9 to 5, I can't even come outside without being scared I'm going to be pressed out.
00:36Yesterday on my way home, look at this shit. I got grabbed through against my wall for no f***ing reason. This is handcuffs.
00:41By who?
00:41A random f***ing police officer that said he can grab me because he has probable cause.
00:46It made no sense to me. I did 10 hours that f***ing day. They cleared me within 10 minutes. They just wanted to, you know, intimidate me.
00:53What is the root cause of violence in D.C. in your mind?
00:56Now, where you live is how you live. In D.C., everything is just so enclosed and convenient.
01:01So, streets are convenient, drugs are convenient, alcohol is convenient, and everybody is just fighting for their little piece of conveniency.
01:07How do you think that these officers or just the city in general could address safety in D.C.?
01:13When you have officers that are from the community or even just share, like, an empathic relationship with people in the community, it'll help them socialize with people in the community better, approach them better.
01:23Like I said, they just approached me. They just grabbed me. They didn't ask me not one question, bro. They f***ing grabbed me. I swear to God.
01:29They grabbed me and then started asking me questions.
01:31If you just talk to people, you know, with a clear mind, clear head, then maybe they'll feel safer about talking to the police, you know?
01:38While Terrence King said he opposes the federal agents, we spoke with Aisha, another lifelong D.C. resident, who said a family member's three-year-old daughter was killed just last month, and she supports the federalization.
01:51The violence within these last, I say, since the 4th of July up to now has been crazy.
01:59It's shaking some people up because some stuff that people was doing, they're scared, you know?
02:04Just hopefully the crime will go away. That's all I want.
02:07I want the shooting to stop.
02:09These innocent children, these innocent children are dying for nothing, and it's sad.
02:16I want these innocent children to stop dying. I want them to have a chance. That's our future. That's our legacy.
02:21So the D.C. National Guardsmen here at Union Station are very relaxed.
02:26People are walking up to them and asking for pictures. They're asking for directions.
02:30The Guardsmen are even handing out water to people who ask.
02:32We're at one of the main transport hubs. We're across the street from the Capitol building, and there is no sign of tension.
02:39At this point, they have to do what they have to do. I think that the crime has settled down some, and hopefully once they go, they don't have to extend it.
02:48I heard they have some more people coming. It's making me a little nervous, but the crime.
02:53How does that make you nervous, the possibility of an extension?
02:56I just, you know, because it made me nervous because I heard it was an incident down at Gallery Place where they had jumped on a lady and beat her up.
03:04You know, I don't know if it's true or not, but that was enough that just made me nervous.
03:07Yes. So you support them being here, but at the same time have a little bit of nervousness that they could potentially overstep.
03:14Yes.
03:15Let me ask you, when you see these National Guardsmen here, do you see this as political in any way?
03:20To a certain extent.
03:21Put it this way, when you look at them, do you see National Guardsmen or do you see Donald Trump?
03:26I see National Guardsmen. I don't see Donald Trump. Personally, that's how I feel.
03:34I just feel like they're here. They had no choice. They had to come.
03:40We're in Chinatown, and this is what we've seen.
03:43FBI agents and Homeland Security Investigations agents are standing and looking over the shoulders of Metro Police Department officers as they write people tickets for fare hopping buses.
03:55It just kind of feels really weird. If we saw these kind of news headlines in another country, we would be panicking, right?
04:01If China was doing stuff like this, where the Capitol is being taken over by federal officers, can you imagine the headlines we'd see?
04:08Instead, it's justified over a crime rate that doesn't exist. It's just weird.
04:14Let me just push back on that for just one second, though, because if you or I hopped the turnstile, as they would say on the subway,
04:20and got on without a ticket, I would fully expect to be written a ticket or a citation for that.
04:26So what's wrong with what they're doing right now?
04:28I think the wrong part is we already have resources like that in place.
04:31We already have Metro cops who wait in certain areas.
04:35It's weird that we're having federal agents be brought in here, have this kind of presence, offer those kind of minor things.
04:40I think if you want to have a conversation about more police in D.C., I'm really up for that, right?
04:44I think we do kind of lack a little bit of policing here.
04:48But to bring in HSI agents, FBI, to do these random kind of tasks, it's strange.
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