Violent crime declined across 66 large U.S. communities, including Washington, D.C. during the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period last year, according to the FBI on Tuesday.
The data shows that Washington, D.C. reported 46 homicides, down 43.9 percent from 82 homicides in the first half of last year.
Also on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said his administration removed more than 5,000 “career criminals” from Washington, D.C., as part of its crime crackdown.
“Two percent of the people cause 91 percent of the crime,” Trump said during an interview with News Nation.
“We got rid of the really bad ones, of career criminals and murderers and took them off the streets,” the president added.
The initiative called for increased law-enforcement coordination, stricter enforcement of public-safety and quality-of-life laws, removal of graffiti and homeless encampments from federal land, cleanup of streets, parks and transit areas, and restoration of damaged monuments and memorials.
The administration later expanded its D.C. public-safety efforts, including declaring a crime emergency in August 2025 and taking additional measures to increase federal involvement in policing the nation’s capital.
Washington used to have “graffiti-filled” monuments with “weeds growing into them” and parks with dead grass, but that has all changed, according to Trump.
“It’s a clean city, it’s beautiful. The monuments are beautiful—they’re sparkling,” Trump said Tuesday about the progress that has been made.
