How the Trump haters turn themselves into pretzel knots to make their point

Fact check: Trump's false claims about Washington, D.C.

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-trumps-false-claims-about-washington-dc/a-73659824

Astrid Prange de Oliveira

08/15/2025August 15, 2025

US President Donald Trump has deployed the National Guard in Washington, D.C. He declared that crime in the capital was "out of control" — but is this really true? DW checks the facts.

Two months after deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles, US President Donald Trump has sent 800 National Guard troops into the American capital. On Monday, he placed the city's police department under federal control, and announced that he would bring in the military if necessary. He justified the move by saying that Washington had a very high level of violent crime, and quoted various statistics to support this.

Claim:

"Crime is out of control in the District of Columbia. […] The magnitude of the violent crime crisis places the District of Columbia among the most violent jurisdictions in the United States," Trump declared in an official White House statement on August 11, reiterating a claim he had posted on his Truth Socialplatform on August 5. "In 2024, the District of Columbia averaged one of the highest robbery and murder rates of large cities nationwide. Indeed, the District of Columbia now has a higher violent crime, murder, and robbery rate than all 50 States, recording a homicide rate in 2024 of 27.54 per 100,000 residents."

DW Fact check: Misleading

At first glance, it would appear that Trump is right. Crime rates in the US capital are indeed high [see table]. According to the FBI, the National Center for Health Statistics, and the Center for Public Safety Initiatives, in 2023, compared to the 50 US states,  Washington, D.C., was one of the most dangerous territories in the US, with a murder rate of 39 for every 100,000 inhabitants.

However, if the numbers for the same year are compared to other major US cities, rather than US states, Washington, which currently has a population of around 684,000, is not the worst offender. Top of the chart, with homicide rates of more than 50 per 100,000 inhabitants, were the cities of New Orleans and St. Louis (Missouri), whose populations are only about half the size. Washington, D.C., is not actually a state, which makes the city comparison more apt.

Violent crime in Washington is down

Trump also fails to mention in his statement that the homicide rate in Washington, D.C., has dropped significantly, from 39 per 100,000 in 2023 to 27 in 2024, which is the figure Trump is quoting. This puts Washington in fourth place in the most recent national statistics of cities with the most homicides per 100,000 residents.

According to Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department, there was a 32% decrease in the number of recorded murders in 2024 — down to 187 from 274 cases in 2023. And a comparable annual period of August 2024 to the present (August 2025) has seen a 26% reduction in reported violent crime.

The mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, spelled this out earlier this week. "It is […] true that we experienced a crime spike post-COVID," she said. "But we worked quickly to put laws in place, and tactics, that got violent offenders off our streets and gave our police officers more tools. Which is why we have seen a huge decrease in crime, because of those efforts. We have been able to reverse that 2023 crime spike."

But, what the claim really shows is that Democrat run cities with heavily black populations are the most dangerous. See link below:

(ed)https://www.rit.edu/liberalarts/sites/rit.edu.liberalarts/files/docs/CPSI%20Working%20Papers/2025-02_CPSI%20Working%20Paper_US%20City%20Homicide%20Stats.pdf

Murder

Virginia man sentenced for 2023 murder of NJ Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour

https://nypost.com/2025/08/18/us-news/virginia-man-sentenced-for-2023-murder-of-new-jersey-councilwoman-eunice-dwumfour/

By 

Associated Press

Published Aug. 18, 2025, 7:29 p.m. ET

MS 13: Giron and Archaga, who are both from Honduras, also crossed the US border illegally during Joe Biden’s term in the White House, according to Nassau officials.

Nassau cops cuff nearly 40 MS-13 gang members accused of terrorizing Long Island as territory beefs heat up

https://nypost.com/2025/08/18/us-news/nassau-cops-cuff-nearly-40-ms-13-gang-members-accused-of-terrorizing-long-island-as-territory-beefs-heat-up/

Sword-wielding MS-13 thugs who have been terrorizing Long Islanders for years have been rounded up as part of a sweeping Nassau County crackdown of nearly 40 of the notorious gang’s street soldiers — on attempted murder, weapons and illicit drug charges.

Included in the massive bust were five college-aged thugs — accused of being part of the deadly MS-13’s Hempstead Locos Salvatruchas branch — who were allegedly responsible for a machete and knife attack that wounded six during a soccer game in broad daylight at the town’s Kennedy Memorial Park last October.

The attack was so gruesome that one victim needed his gallbladder removed and his diaphragm and liver surgically repaired, authorities said.

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Nassau County cops have arrested nearly 40 suspected MS-13 members in a recent crackdown. New York Post

The victims ranged in age between 20 and 51. 

“We are removing dangerous criminals and gang members from our communities and will continue to fight to keep Nassau County the safest county in America,” Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman told The Post.

Purported El Salvadorian sect leader Ellias Wilfredo Serrano Bonilla, 21, was brought up on eight counts of attempted murder and a laundry list of weapons, robbery and assault charges over the brazen assault on the pitch.

Bonilla, who calls East Meadow home, is believed to have entered the US illegally sometime prior to 2016, and was previously arrested in Nassau on first-degree assault and gang assault charges in early 2020, according to authorities.

Accomplices in the attack, Edras Daniel Velasquez Giron, 19, Jeffrey Bladimir Valladares Archaga, 20, Pedro Martinez Velasquez, 18, and Kelvin Martinez, 19, are all facing charges related to the harrowing incident.

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Elias Wilfredo Serrano Bonilla Obtained by NY Post

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Jeffrey Bladimir Valladares Archaga Obtained by NY Post

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Edras Daniel Velasquez Giron Obtained by NY Post

Giron and Archaga, who are both from Honduras, also crossed the US border illegally during Joe Biden’s term in the White House, according to Nassau officials.

Last December, Bonilla, Velasquez and Martinez, along with two others — 24-year-old Kennet Contreras and 18-year-old Edwin Patzan Piri — used machetes and white pipes to allegedly attack a pair of people parked outside a Uniondale laundromat.

“MS-13 has a long and violent history in New York, particularly on Long Island, where its members have terrorized communities for decades,” Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly, a Republican, said in announcing the charges on Monday.

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Nassau County police officers making an arrest. New York Post

In 2017, President Trump visited MS-13 hotspot Brentwood in nearby Suffolk County to address the violent street gang, while pledging to destroy it.

Blakeman, who authorized the mammoth law enforcement bust this month, said Nassau’s drop in crime has been” significant” since Trump returned to Washington — thanks to the county’s formal partnership with ICE.

“These relationships materially help us incarcerate and deport dangerous criminals that prey on our communities, and as a result, we are the safest county in America,” Blakeman, who is up for reelection in November, added — referencing an August 2024 ranking of safest US counties by US News & World Report.

Rival gangs beefing

The large-scale raids over the past two weeks came at a time when Nassau police observed worrisome upticks in gang violence — most notably a 17-year-old who gunned down a victim as part of an initiation, according to law enforcement sources.

Police have also seen a recent rise in feuds between the MS-13s and rival 18th Street gangs over things as trivial as social media posts and public sightings, which prompted cops to swoop in.

Other gangs like the Trinitarios — the group responsible for the notorious 2018 mistaken identity machete murder of a Bronx teen, “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, who aspired to join the NYPD one day — are leaving a mark on Long Island, too.

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An MS-13 weapon recovered in Nassau County. Courtesy of Nassau County

“Most of them all have rivalries with each other,” Nassau PD Sgt. John Schmitt told The Post during a ride-along overnight Monday in the Hempstead area, which is often notoriously called “the sixth borough” by locals on the island.

“The violent gang members do have weapons. They’re not out here without weapons.”

During the ride-along, The Post witnessed the arrest of Joel Elvin Paulino El DeJesus — a “known and identified” Trinitario — who was rung up on felony narcotics charges in the heart of the village just after midnight.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Undercover units arrested the thug for allegedly holding seven grams of packaged cocaine hidden in his SUV by a parking lot that’s been an increasing hot spot for danger recently, according to the sergeant.

“We had violence here in this parking lot two nights ago,” added Schmitt. 

“We had an attempted murder — stabbing — and several people assaulted in this area.”

By 

Alex Mitchell

Published Aug. 18, 2025, 6:06 p.m. ET

The curse of Sharia

Washington teen emotionally confronts parents over ‘honor killing’ plot: ‘You’re a disgusting monster’

https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/us-news/parents-sentencted-in-washington-honor-killing-plot/

By 

Emily Crane

Published Aug. 19, 2025, 8:01 a.m. ET

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A Muslim teenager who was nearly strangled by her Iraqi parents in an apparent “honor killing” plot blasted them as monsters as they were sentenced in Washington on Monday over the horrific, caught-on-camera ordeal.

The teen, only identified as Fatima, lashed out at her parents — Ihsan and Zahraa Ali — in an Evergreen State court after they were previously accused of trying to kill their daughter, then 17, outside Timberline High School last October, KING 5 reported.

“You think I’m a disgusting human being, well, I think you’re a disgusting monster,” the teen told her father as she delivered an emotional victim impact statement ahead of the sentencing.

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Fatima called her father “a disgusting monster” before he was sentenced to 20 months. King5

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Video showed Ali choking his daughter outside her high school in Washington state. FOX 13 Seattle

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Fatima’s mother will serve just under a year in prison. King5

“How can you call yourself a father? You tried to kill me, my dad tried to kill me with his own hands, do you have no love for me?

“My mom saw me almost pass away right in front of her own eyes and didn’t help me at all, didn’t see if I was OK … didn’t even try to be there for me,” Fatima added as she addressed her mother.

The girl’s parents were both acquitted of attempted murder charges earlier this month over the savage Oct. 18, 2024, attack.

Instead, her father was found guilty of assault and unlawful imprisonment, while her mom was only found guilty of violating a court order.

The judge imposed the maximum sentences for the charges they ended up being convicted of: 20 months for the father and just under one year for the mother.

During the trial, prosecutors said the girl had run away from home on the day of the attack because she had been abused and feared her parents were going to take her to their native Iraq.

The daughter told cops that her “father had recently been threatening her with honor killing for refusing an arranged marriage with an older man in another county,” court papers stated.

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Ali allegedly choked his daughter until she lost consciousness, police said. Lacey Police Department

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Her mom was found guilty of violating a court order. Lacey Police Department

After she sought help from her school, the girl’s enraged parents showed up and attacked her. 

Multiple students frantically tried to intervene as the teen’s father was caught on camera putting the girl into a headlock until she passed out. 

During the sentencing, Judge Christine Schaller said Fatima would likely have died if it weren’t for the bystanders.

“Your behavior was reprehensible and nothing defends what you did,” the judge told the father. 

“You were not going to let her go, you were not going to let her breathe because nobody else was going to control the situation … you were going to maintain control.”