WASHINGTON (AP) — Around 2 a.m., noisy revelers emerging from clubs and bars packed the sidewalks of U Street in Washington, many of them seeking a late-night slice or falafel. A robust but not unusual contingent of city police cruisers lingered around the edges of the crowds. At other late-night hot spots, nearly identical scenes unfolded.
What wasn’t apparent in Friday’s (Aug. 8, 2025) earliest hours: any sort of security lockdown by a multiagency flood of uniformed federal law enforcement officers. That’s what President Donald Trump had promised Thursday, starting at midnight, in the administration’s latest move to impose its will on the nation’s capital.
In short, that law enforcement surge to take control of the District of Columbia’s streets did not appear to unfold on schedule. A two-hour city tour, starting around 1 a.m. Friday, revealed no overt or visible law enforcement presence other than members of the Metropolitan Police Department, the city’s police force.
That still might change in the coming evenings as Trump puts into action his long-standing plans to “take over” a capital city he has repeatedly slammed as unsafe, filthy and badly run. According to his Thursday declaration, the security lockdown will run for seven days, “with the option to extend as needed.” In an online post Saturday, the Republican president said the Democratic-led city would soon be one of the country’s safest and he announced a White House news conference for Monday, though he offered no details.
On Friday night, a White House official said Thursday night’s operations included arrests for possession of two stolen firearms, suspected fentanyl and marijuana. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said more than 120 members of various federal agencies — the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service — were to be on duty Friday night, upping the complement of federal officers involved.
“This is the first step in stopping the violent crime that has been plaguing the streets of Washington, D.C.,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, who publicly faced off against Trump in 2020 when he called in a massive federal law enforcement response to disperse crowds of protesters, has not said a public word since Trump’s declaration. The police department has gone similarly silent.
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