Washington – In the neighborhood where Washington saw its first homicide in almost two weeks at dawn on Tuesday, residents divide on the value of the federal forces of President Donald Trump’s law in the city.
NBC News spoke with more than a dozen people on Tuesday who live and work in the area surrounding the block 300 of Anacostia Road in the southeast of DC, where, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, the city officers had responded to a fatal shooting shortly after midnight. It was the first homicide reported on DC since August 13.
On Tuesday afternoon, after the schools had left the day, more than half a dozen children lined up on the front steps of an apartment complex in the block where the shooting occurred.
The local response to the “federal acquisition” of DC of Trump was mixed, and some accredited him for having an active interest in public safety in the city and others criticizing him for an accumulation that they described as unnecessary or aimed at the wrong parts of the city.
“I really have no problem with the police presence,” said Brian Williams, 56, who informed having seen the National Guard, the FBI and the local police forces in the neighborhood. “It is very necessary in certain neighborhoods of the district. Not everyone is necessary, but some of them are necessary.”
But, Williams added, “those who need, you don’t see the presence there.”
Some residents said they had not seen national or federal guard agents in their neighborhood, and a map of Washington Post of such sightings, published on August 15, showed a much heavier presence in the richest and most frequently of tourists to the west of the Anacostia River.
Trump had boasted on Monday that “many years had passed since we went a week without having a murder.” (DC had a 16 -day streak earlier this year). The National Guard troops began arriving at DC on August 12 in response to Trump’s statement of an “emergency of the crime” in the capital of the nation.
Federal agents focus on arresting violent criminals, including drug traffickers, often executing arrest orders, instead of patrol neighborhoods, according to a White House official.
“Thanks to the bold action of President Trump, federal and local officers have gone to areas of high crime throughout the Washington, DC, to stop dangerous criminals,” said White House spokesman Taylor Rogers. “In fact, the violent crime that affects the communities of the city is exactly why President Trump is taking energetic measures against crime and restoring law and order. The Trump administration will not rest until DC is the safest city in the country.”
Most people in the neighborhood surrounding Tuesday’s shooting refused to give their full names for fear of compensation. Several said they saw the police in Anacostia Road after homicide.
A 77 -year -old man who identified only when Ray said the police appeared “only when something like that happens.” He said he has not seen many changes in the weeks since Trump’s policy entered into force, which feels no difference in his level of security.
“I don’t get with anyone,” he said. “I talk to [people]They talk to me, and then I go home. “
For some residents, the increase in the presence of application of the law has the perverse consequence of creating fear and anxiety among people who do not commit crimes.
“When I saw the presence of the police, I felt threatened here in this neighborhood, just on the other side of the street,” said Juan, who refused to give his last name, pointing to 37th Street Se, who runs approximately parallel to Anacostia Road in the 7th DC neighborhood.
Juan, who identified himself as a member of the LGBTQ community, said he has sporadically seen a federal presence, including immigration agents and customs application. He opposes that presence.
“Do not come to the neighborhoods where people are in their residence. Do not go and harass the Hispanic people who go home from work,” he said. “Because you are pointing to citizens, you are pointing to the respectful citizens of the law that are taxpayers, who are working people, who work citizens of the community, instead of people who are causing riffoff, drama.”
A woman who gave her name as Israel, who works in the area around Tuesday morning shooting, but lives in the Turn of the City river section on the west side of the Anacostia River, said she feels comfortable with the intensified federal presence Trump has ordered.
“I’m not angry with him,” he said. “People are afraid to leave. Your children can’t play outside.”
Israel added that they want minors to be prosecuted as adults to deter crime.
“At this time, they are receiving a slap on the wrist,” he said. “They need to get more than one prayer, like an adult … they need to be locked up. Because they continue to leave them, they will continue to steal cars, they will continue stealing stores.”
Trump said Monday that he is so satisfied with the results in DC that he wants to expand the program, that he presents federal agents that focus on the application of the local law and a presence of the National Guard, to other cities, including Chicago.
“Within a week, we will not have a crime in Chicago, just like we have no crimes in DC,” he told reporters on Monday. On Tuesday, a White House official said that federal agents have made 1,094 arrests in the capital of the nation since Trump ordered the increase on August 7, a figure that included 87 arrests on Monday.
Williams, who held a can of Icehouse beer while sitting in an exhaustion in an apartment complex between 37th Street and Anacostia Road, said there are parts of the city, specifically in the eighth neighborhood of the city, where the increase in the application of the law would be more effective.
He acknowledged that the visibility of local and federal authorities has altered the behavior in his neighborhood, but he wondered how much that will last.
“I’ve seen the difference: at night, you don’t see so many people as you used to do it, because they know that the presence is here,” he said. “But, as, what will happen when they leave?”
