More than 100 protesters gathered late Wednesday night on 14th Street Northwest in Washington, D.C., to confront a newly established police checkpoint operated by local and federal officers. The installation came under President Donald Trump’s order to take control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and deploy around 800 National Guard members in the city—a move the president has said could mark the beginning of similar operations in other major cities.
The protesters, many holding signs and shouting at officers, chanted “Go home fascists” and “Get off our streets” as they urged drivers to turn away from the checkpoint. The operation included uniformed D.C. police, Homeland Security Investigations personnel, and several plainclothes federal agents. National Guard troops, though deployed under Trump’s order, were not seen at the site.
There was no officially stated purpose for the checkpoint. It took place amid the administration’s mass deportation campaign and threats to deploy U.S. troops in cities to suppress dissent. Witnesses described federal agents pulling over drivers for minor infractions such as seat belt violations and broken taillights. One D.C. resident wrote on Reddit that agents were “pulling people out of cars who are ‘suspicious’ or if they don’t like the answers to their questions.” NBC News reported that one vehicle was towed after the driver was removed from the car and arrested. At least one person arrested at the checkpoint was a Black woman.
The checkpoint shut down before midnight, but tensions were high. Federal agents and local officers dispersed without further confrontation as the crowd grew. The Metropolitan Police Department did not respond to requests for comment about the operation or arrests.
Trump announced earlier this week that his administration would take control of the city’s police force for at least a month, citing what he described as emergency crime levels. D.C. leaders, however, pointed to statistics showing that violent crime fell to a 30-year low last year after a sharp rise two years earlier.
Under federal law, the president has the authority to control the city’s police for up to 30 days without congressional approval. Extending the takeover would require Congress to act. Trump has indicated he may seek such an extension, or possibly declare a national emergency. “We’re gonna do this very quickly. But we’re gonna want extensions. I don’t want to call a national emergency. If I have to, I will,” he said.
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump wrote, “D.C. has been under siege from thugs and killers, but now, D.C. is back under Federal Control where it belongs.”
The federal presence has expanded beyond checkpoints. Homeland Security Investigations agents were seen patrolling the U Street corridor. Drug Enforcement Administration officers were on the National Mall, and National Guard vehicles were stationed nearby. DEA agents joined Metropolitan Police officers on patrol in Navy Yard, while FBI agents were spotted along Massachusetts Avenue.
According to a National Guard spokesperson, federal troops were expected to begin additional missions in Washington starting Thursday. Hundreds of officers patrolled the streets on Tuesday night, making 43 arrests—an increase from about two dozen the night before.
D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson dismissed the arrest totals as overstated, calling them “a bunch of traffic stops” and saying the federal intervention was unnecessary. “I’m looking at this list of arrests and they sound like a normal Saturday night in any big city,” she said. Henderson, who previously worked for Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, added that she was in touch with “friends on the Hill” to build opposition to any request for an extension of Trump’s control. “It’s Day Three and he’s already saying he’s going to need more time?” she said.
Mayor Muriel Bowser has taken a mixed approach in public remarks, at times calling the takeover an “authoritarian push” and at other moments framing it as a potential boost to safety—though she has offered no specific measures to assess its effectiveness.
Radley Balko, a journalist who has documented the militarization of U.S. police, wrote earlier this week that “the motivation for Donald Trump’s plan to ‘federalize’ Washington, D.C., is same as his motivation for sending active-duty troops into Los Angeles, deporting people to the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador, his politicization of the Department of Justice, and nearly every other authoritarian overreach of the last six months: He is testing the limits of his power—and, by extension, of our democracy.”
“He’s feeling out what the Supreme Court, Congress, and the public will let him get away with. And so far, he’s been able to do what he pleases,” Balko continued. “We are now past the point of crisis. Trump has long dreamed of presiding over a police state. He has openly admired and been reluctant to criticize foreign leaders who helm one. He has now appointed people who have expressed their willingness to help him achieve one to the very positions with the power to make one happen. And both he and his highest-ranking advisers have both openly spoken about and written out their plans to implement one.”
“It’s time to believe them,” Balko added.
The events in D.C. reflect a broader pattern of expanded federal authority over local law enforcement and the use of national security justifications for domestic policing. The legal and political battles ahead will determine whether the president’s unprecedented actions in the nation’s capital remain temporary or set a lasting precedent for similar interventions across the country.
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