Attorney General Pam Bondi named Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) head Terry Cole to be the D.C. “Emergency Police Commissioner” amid President Donald Trump’s takeover of the police in Washington, DC.
In a directive issued on Thursday, Bondi said Cole will assume “powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police,” adding the Metropolitan Police Department “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole” before issuing any orders.
The role of police commissioner Pamela Smith remains unknown.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb called Bondi’s directive “unlawful” and that it could not be followed by the police.
“Therefore, members of MPD must continue to follow your orders and not the orders of any official not appointed by the Mayor,” Schwalb wrote in a memo to Smith.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote on social media, “there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”
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As Breitbart News reported last week, President Trump ordered federal law enforcement officers to patrol the streets of Washington, DC, for the next seven days to crack down on violent crime. The federal presence will be led by the U.S. Park Police and will reportedly “include officers and agents from the FBI, DEA, ATF, divisions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies,” per the Hill.
“The order came after a March executive order establishing the Making D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, ‘To ensure effective federal participation’ in the enforcement of immigration laws and redirecting resources to apprehend and deport migrants in Washington, as well as monitoring its sanctuary city status to comply with federal immigration laws,” noted the outlet.
The federal presence will be in marked units.
On Monday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called the president’s order “unsettling and unprecedented.”
“And while this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that — given some of the rhetoric of the past — that we’re totally surprised,” she said, adding that she will be “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.”
The D.C. police union publicly backed the president’s order.
“We stand with the President in recognizing that Washington, DC, cannot continue on this trajectory. Crime is out of control, and our officers are stretched beyond their limits,” said Gregg Pemberton, the chairman of the union, according to a statement shared by WUSA’s Spencer Allen.
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