🚨 The Washington Takeover: Fear as a Frame

By Ian Kydd Miller : Photographer, writer, and advocate for ethical storytelling

When the Frame Becomes the Weapon

In August 2025, Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of Washington, D.C.’s police force. He deployed 800 National Guard troops, invoked emergency powers under the 1973 Home Rule Act, and attempted to install a DEA official as “emergency police commissioner.” His justification? A city “overrun” by “bloodthirsty criminals,” “drugged-out maniacs,” and “homeless people.”

But the numbers tell a different story. Violent crime in D.C. is at its lowest level in 30 years. What’s rising isn’t danger—it’s distortion. The takeover wasn’t a response to reality. It was a performance of control, staged for political gain and aimed squarely at the vulnerable.

Who Gets Targeted

Trump’s language wasn’t just inflammatory—it was strategic. It cast the most marginalized as threats to public order:

• 🏚 Unhoused individuals were described as “filth” to be purged. Troops were ordered to clear encampments, severing access to shelter, support, and dignity.

• 🧠 People with mental illness or addiction were labeled “maniacs,” stripped of complexity and reduced to caricatures of chaos.

• 👦 Black youth, especially motorcycle riders and teens gathering in public, were framed as “roving mobs,” echoing decades of racialized fear used to justify militarised policing.

This wasn’t policy. It was propaganda. And it worked—at least for those who benefit from fear.

The Legal Battle for Autonomy

D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb pushed back, challenging the legality of the takeover. A federal judge brokered a compromise: Police Chief Pamela Smith would remain in charge, but federal immigration enforcement would proceed regardless of city law.

Mayor Muriel Bowser called the move “unsettling and unprecedented,” warning that D.C.’s limited autonomy had “never faced the type of test we are facing right now.”

This wasn’t just about crime—it was about control. About who gets to define safety. About who gets to govern a city that still lacks full statehood.

The Spectacle of Safety

As a photographer, I’ve learned to distrust spectacle. It often hides more than it reveals. Trump’s takeover was a spectacle of safety—military vehicles parked near Nationals Park, Union Station, and neighbourhood restaurants. The message was clear: order through force, visibility through fear.

But real safety isn’t performative. It’s quiet. It’s built through trust, care, and community. None of that was on offer in Trump’s Washington.

Final Reflection: Witnessing with Integrity

This moment demands more than reaction. It demands witnessing. Not just of what happened, but of how it was framed—and who was excluded from the frame.

We must resist the politics of erasure. We must see, speak honestly, and stand with those displaced—not because they are dangerous, but because they are inconvenient to power.

Trump has hinted that Chicago and Los Angeles could be next. The blueprint is clear. The question is: will we let fear define the frame?

A Call to Document

To fellow photographers, writers, and witnesses: this is our moment to document with empathy. To frame with care. To tell the stories that power tries to erase.

Let’s make the invisible visible. Let’s choose presence over spectacle. Let’s remember that the frame is never neutral—and neither are we.