Gregg Pemberton, chair of the D.C. Police Union, has publicly endorsed President Donald Trump’s recent federal takeover of the nation’s capital’s police department, framing the move as a necessary but temporary step toward addressing rising crime in the region. In an op-ed published by The Washington Post, Pemberton acknowledged the immediate impact of Trump’s deployment of the National Guard, calling it a ‘critical stopgap’ that yielded ‘positive results’ following the crackdown. However, he emphasized that federal control alone cannot resolve the underlying issues within the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), which he attributes to the D.C. Council’s ‘misguided reform’ agenda.
Pemberton pointed to the Council’s passage of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Act as a key factor, a law that, despite being vetoed by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and attempts to repeal it by Congress, has been criticized for weakening police rights, stripping collective bargaining privileges, and replacing the use-of-force standard with a more subjective review process. He further argued that the current staffing of the MPD, which has lost over 600 officers since 2020 and now has only 3,181 sworn members out of an authorized strength of 4,000, has been exacerbated by unsustainable workloads and a lack of support from local officials.
Pemberton also called out the current state of homicide rates, stating that D.C. has averaged over 200 killings per year from 2021 to 2024, compared to about 100 per year a decade earlier. He concluded that while Trump’s intervention has provided relief, the D.C. Council must now act to repeal the controversial reform law and provide real investment to stabilize the department.