1989 Barry: ‘Support Not Intervention’ vs. 2025 Bowser: ‘Unsettling and Unprecedented’

In 1989, the National Guard, under the direction of former President George H.W. Bush, entered the nation’s capital as a locally directed partner with a narrow support role. In 2025, under President Donald Trump, the National Guard has arrived as a federally commanded force, emphasizing how quickly the president can replace D.C.’s self-governance with direct federal control.

When the National Guard was deployed to D.C. in 1989, then-Mayor Marion Barry made one thing clear: The troops would not patrol city streets or make arrests. 

The mission, Barry said, was to support, not take over, District police, a stance shaped by the city’s fight to preserve its limited autonomy through home rule and avoid military involvement in everyday policing.

Today’s use of that authority is a complete departure from 1989. 

Trump has removed operational control from the city, placed the police under federal command, and deployed 800 Guard troops with powers to perform law enforcement duties, including arrests. 

Mayor Muriel Bowser, unable to block the move under the law, called it “unsettling and unprecedented,” warning that it strips away the city’s right to direct its own policing.

1989: ‘Support Not Intervention’ 

The deployment 36 years ago came at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, when D.C. faced record homicide rates. With $2.6 million in federal funding, 250 Guard members were brought in to handle clerical work, assist with intelligence gathering, provide logistical support, and manage crowd and traffic control at special events. 

Barry, former Police Chief Maurice Turner, and then-Guard Commander Maj. Gen. Calvin Franklin agreed the Guard’s role would stay behind the scenes.

“We’ll be involved in interdiction and eradication efforts strictly in a support role,” Franklin said at a press conference when the move was announced in 1989. 

The guard commander added that while the Guard could patrol, “we do not think it is an appropriate role for the military.”

The District of Columbia Home Rule Act, passed in 1973, granted Washington an elected mayor and council but left ultimate power with Congress and the president. Under the Act, the president serves as commander-in-chief of the D.C. National Guard and can deploy it without the mayor’s consent. 

Trump’s decision mandating federal control over the MPD on Monday, Aug. 11, which he called “Liberation Day for D.C.,” comes under Section 740– a rarely used law that exists only because the District lacks full statehood, authorizing the president to take control of the Metropolitan Police Department when “special conditions of an emergency nature” exist for 30 days.

In 1989, a Justice Department opinion confirmed the Guard could assist civil authorities under D.C. law without violating the Posse Comitatus Act. But Barry’s approach kept the Guard out of direct policing, ensuring city officials maintained operational control.

“We welcome the support of the Guard,” the late Barry, often called D.C.’s “Mayor for Life,” said at the time. “It will be one of support and not one of direct intervention on the streets.” 

2025: A ‘Black City… Denied Rights and Protections of Statehood‘

For Mayor Bowser, the president’s decision means she no longer has operational control of her own police department. 

All decisions on how and where officers are deployed now run through the Justice Department. That includes the ability to redirect D.C. police from neighborhood patrols to guard federal buildings, secure national monuments, and police protests — even if it leaves fewer officers in local communities. 

Further, Trump named Terry Cole interim federal administrator for MPD.

For African Americans in the District — who make up nearly half the city’s population — the change places local policing under the direct control of a president who has repeatedly called for racial profiling, attacked other predominately Black-led cities such as Baltimore and Chicago, and used “law and order” policies that disproportionately target Black communities. 

“The man who wanted to lynch the [Exonerated Five] is now unlawfully deploying the national guard and taking over the police department of D.C. — a beautiful, vibrant majority Black city that has been denied the rights and protections of statehood,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trump justified the takeover by citing D.C.’s 2024 homicide and vehicle theft rates, even though other cities he has singled out — all with large Black populations and Black leadership — have seen major crime reductions this year. 

This is only possible because D.C. is not a state — a political reality that leaves its leadership vulnerable to federal override and its residents without full control over their own local government. 

Residents could see federal priorities override local crime prevention strategies, with increased policing around demonstrations and broader latitude for aggressive enforcement tactics. 

In his Aug. 11 press conference, the president noted what he felt was the best way for officers to deal with people who are resisting arrest in the District.

“They fight back until you knock the hell out of them,” Trump said.

Todd A. Cox, associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), noted the potential dangers in deploying the National Guard in District streets.

“The show of force through the deployment of National Guard units and the takeover of D.C. Metro Police is an affront to safety that will instead embolden law enforcement officers to operate with unchecked violence,” Cox wrote in an Aug. 11 statement. “It goes against the will of the residents of D.C. who democratically and lawfully elected a mayor and city council representatives to make decisions regarding safety for their District.” 

Cox particularly expressed concern considering Trump’s efforts to “clean up” the District through vowing to forcibly remove homeless residents from D.C., promising to relocate them “far from the capital.”

“The government’s action [Aug. 11] threatens individuals who are unhoused and residents in vulnerable, aggressively and disparately policed neighborhoods that will likely be profiled,” he said before, emphasizing the need for full representation for District residents in the House and Senate. “It also underscores the need for D.C. statehood to empower D.C. residents, who pay taxes and are equal contributors to the U.S. economy as other U.S. residents, to vote for representatives who can protect their interests.”

Mayor Bowser has also long pushed for the District to become the 51st state.  

“We know that access to our democracy is tenuous, that is why you have heard me and many, many Washingtonians before me, advocate for full statehood for the District of Columbia. We are American citizens. Our families go to war. We pay taxes and we uphold the responsibilities of citizenship,” Bowser said during an Aug. 11 presss conference. 

Assuring residents, Bowser had a clear message after Trump’s announcement.

“We will continue to operate our government that makes you proud. We will balance our budgets, we will deploy our services, our kids are going to start school on Aug. 25 and we will work with the federal government for them to do the things that they should do for our city,” she said, “including: making sure that we have the judges that we need; including making sure that all federal parks are supported, not just with law enforcement, but with other clean and safe activities; and including making sure that our economy is supported by rational federal actions as it relates to the federal workforce, federal workers and federal property in the District of Columbia.”