In the February State of the Union, and again on Truth Social during the July 4 week, President Trump described Washington the same way: "one of the safest cities in the country" [1]. The claim rides on a genuine improvement, which makes it worth getting exactly right rather than simply knocking down.
The improvement first, because it is real and it is large. DC homicides hit a 20-year high of 274 in 2023, fell to 187 in 2024, and dropped again to about 127 in 2025 - the first year under 150 since 2017 [6]. Across 2025, robberies fell 37 percent and homicides 32 percent against the prior year [4]. Anyone who says nothing changed in Washington is wrong.
Data
| 2023 | 274 homicides |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 187 homicides |
| 2025 | 127 homicides |
The superlative is where the numbers stop cooperating. Even after two straight years of sharp declines, Washington's 2024 violent-crime rate was 1,006 per 100,000 residents - about 180 percent above the national average, according to USAFacts' reading of FBI data [2]. A city running at nearly three times the national rate is a city that got safer, not one of the safest.
Two more facts complicate the story the claim is meant to tell. The decline began before the federal deployment: shootings started falling in mid-April 2025, months ahead of the August 2025 National Guard presence the administration credits [5]. The direction has also stalled in 2026. As of MPD's dashboard on July 2, year-to-date violent crime was 1,326 against 1,327 a year earlier - flat - with homicides down 45 percent but assaults with a dangerous weapon up 46 percent [3]. The Council on Criminal Justice, tracking the same drop, notes DC violence remains about 10 percent above its pre-pandemic level and above the average of the large cities it studies [5].
The accurate sentence is not a hard one to say. Washington cut its homicides roughly in half from a 2023 peak, the fall started before the troops arrived, and the city is still well above the national average with 2026 running flat. That is a real recovery in progress. It is not, on the data anyone keeps, one of the safest cities in the country.
