EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:

Some of the 800 National Guard members deployed by President Donald Trump began arriving in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, ramping up after the White House ordered federal forces to take over the city’s police department and reduce crime in the nation's capital.

Like the U.S. overall, the nation’s capital has experienced a decrease in violent crime.

Violent crime in the United States fell 4.5% last year, according to a new FBI report, which also shows an 8% drop in property crime from the year before.

The FBI statistics released last week show murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in the U.S. in 2024 fell nearly 15% from a year earlier, continuing a decline that’s been seen since a coronavirus pandemic-era crime spike. Reported hate crimes decreased 1.5%, according to the report.

Despite that slight decrease, last year’s hate crime totals were the second highest reported by the FBI in the more than 30 years it has been collecting data, according to Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and professor emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino.

Crime surged during the coronavirus pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% in 2020 over the previous year, the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records. Violent crime across the U.S. dipped to near pre-pandemic levels around 2022.

The FBI collects data through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, and not all law enforcement agencies in the U.S. participate. The 2024 report is based on data from more than 16,000 agencies, or more than 86% of those agencies in the FBI’s program. The agencies included in the report protect more than 325 million people across the U.S.

A recent Department of Justice report shows that violent crime is down 35% in Washington D.C. since 2023, returning to the previous trend of decreasing crime that puts the district’s violent crime rate at its lowest in 30 years. Police statistics show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.

The city’s statistics have come into question, however, after authorities opened an investigation into allegations that officials altered some of the data to make it look better. But Mayor Muriel Bowser stands by the data and said Trump’s portrait of lawlessness is inaccurate.

Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in an executive order to declare a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city’s police force. No president has done this before.

The law lets Trump control the police department for a month, but how aggressive the federal presence will be remains an open question, and during a press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said they would “reevaluate and reassess and make further decisions” after the 30-day period is over. The White House would need approval from both House and Senate in order to extend the takeover of the police department.

A trial started Monday over the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles earlier this summer. The guard members accompanied federal immigration officers on raids. The question is whether Trump's deployment of armed forces goes against U.S. law that generally prohibits the president from using the military to police domestic affairs. The trial could set precedent for how Trump can deploy the guard in the future in California or other states, but Washington is a federal enclave and Trump deployed the National Guard under laws and Constitutional powers that give the federal government more sway over the nation’s capital than other cities, though the act is unprecedented.

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READ AP'S COVERAGE

Trump’s takeover of Washington law enforcement begins as National Guard troops arrive

Trump’s domestic troop deployment tests the limits of a nearly 150-year-old law (explainer on the Posse Comitatus Act)

Trump’s rhetoric about DC echoes a history of racist narratives about urban

Violent crime in the US dropped 4.5% last year, FBI data shows

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FIND YOUR STATE AND AGENCY

Data for the Crime in the Nation report is available online at https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/home. If you click on any state on the map, you’ll see data for that state and how it compares to the rest of the nation.

The available data goes down to the local level. After you click on a state, the filters at the top of the page include “Agency Select.” Click in the box and scroll to the agency you are seeking.

Charts break down crimes by the age of the victim or the offender, where they occurred, how many have been “cleared,” weapons used and other factors.

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CAVEATS ABOUT THE DATA

As in years past, many agencies failed to provide data. The 2024 report is based on data from more than 16,000 agencies, or more than 86% of those agencies in the FBI’s program. That's an improvement over last year and previous years. A change in collection methods in compiling 2022 numbers helped improve the reporting issue, and that year the FBI said the new data represented 83.3% of all agencies covering 93.5% of the population. By contrast, the previous year's numbers were from only 62.7% of agencies, representing 64.8% of Americans.

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Some notes of caution:

The FBI has long warned against using its crime data to compile rankings of cities or compare different areas. The agency says there are myriad reasons why crime can vary from place to place that aren’t captured by numbers alone and creating rankings can create a misleading and damaging perceptions about a particular area.

Further, there are many limitations with any crime data. For a crime to be included in a dataset, it must be reported to or observed by the police and then accurately entered into that agency’s database. Not all police departments submit their stats to the FBI, as stated in the previous section, and there are inconsistencies each year in which police departments are submitting data. Local police may inaccurately record a crime and then submit that to the FBI, but because the FBI only does audits at the request of agencies, there are limited checks on the data.

It is important to become familiar with the reporting and database practices of your area police departments and focus on the statistics within your community and who is being impacted by crimes, and crucially, get beyond the numbers and ask local agencies and advocacy groups what might explain what appears to be happening in your area. In examining trends from year to year, consider possible external factors. Those include changes in the frequency with which people report crimes, from cultural shifts to new reporting systems, as well as changes in the way police departments record their data and submit it to the FBI.

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SUGGESTED REPORTING THREADS

— Have homicides, rapes, armed robberies and other violent crimes in your city or county leveled off or decreased now that the onset of the pandemic is several years in the past? What do local social service agencies attribute the post-COVID spike to? Stress? Economic problems?

— Do residents believe state gun laws are beneficial in keeping crime in check? What other steps do residents believe the local police department should be taking to address crime? Are there programs or organizations beyond the police department that are trying to address crime in other ways in your community?

— When you input your local agency on the FBI’s site under Agency Select, you may find that there is no data from your local agency. This is common, but the situation has improved over last year as stated above in our section on data caveats. Consider reaching out to your local police department and asking why they didn’t submit their data to the FBI, ask the last time they did submit their data and if they have a plan in place to do so for the next year. Ask them to provide the latest local crime data for 2024 and recent years.

— If you live in or near a major city, check in with elected officials, law enforcement and community advocates -- have they considered the possibility of the Trump administration sending federal troops to the area and for what reason?

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READ ADDITIONAL AP COVERAGE

Trump’s moves toward taking over Washington are unprecedented. Here’s what the law says

FACT FOCUS: Trump exaggerates, misstates facts on Washington crime

Trump says he’s placing Washington police under federal control and activating the National Guard

Trump’s order to deploy troops in DC is his latest use of the National Guard in cities

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Localize It is a resource produced by The Associated Press for its customers’ use. Questions can be directed to the Local News Success team at localizeit@ap.org.