Liberals have lined up this week to attack President Trump’s putting Washington D.C.’s police department under federal control.

But it was not long ago leaders on the Left, some of whom live in Washington, were very vocal about the failure of local officials to control crime. In 2023, 33 Democratic senators, including Chuck Schumer, Tammy Baldwin, and Tim Kaine, joined Republicans to overturn D.C.’s criminal code reform, driven by worries that its allowance for early release of some felons would exacerbate the city’s already rising murder rate.

A few gutsy Democrats are still speaking out. Anthony Coley, who directed public affairs at the Biden Justice Department from 2021 to 2023, says the city’s juvenile arrest record is way too low given how high the juvenile crime rate is, and that the city only employs 3,187 police officers – one of the lowest levels since the 1970s. “If officials in the district don’t do something, they may give the president and Congress reason to try to take over even more than they already have,” Coley warned.

Liberals now say the crime problem is under control in DC. Too bad DC residents – mostly black – don’t agree. A Mary Washington poll earlier this year found that over half of Washington D.C residents rate crime in the city as  “extremely serious” or “very serious”?