CINCINNATI — The Ohio National Guard will be deployed to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. This comes after President Donald Trump took control over the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, claiming "crime is out of control” in the city.
Ohio is one of six states across the U.S. that have agreed to send National Guard troops to the nation’s capital.
“We are there to support the D.C. National Guard, and so that’s what, that’s what the assignment is,” Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday while speaking on 700 WLW.
The plan is for the troops to be in D.C. for 30 days, but that could be extended. DeWine said that his Adjutant General of the Ohio National Guard received the call for assistance on Friday night. DeWine then made the decision to send them over.
“We’re Ohioians, we do what we can to help,” said DeWine.
Hear why DeWine decided to send the Ohio National Guard to D.C.:
All the troops sent over from Ohio will be Military Police (MP) members. DeWine said he made sure none of them would be taken from local police departments.
Several local Democrats have criticized the governor's decision, including House Minority Leader Dani Isaacssohn (D-Cincinnati), who said in part in a statement, “Ohio’s National Guard exists to protect and serve Ohioans and other Americans in moments of true crisis. ... Their mission is helping Ohioans, not serving as props in a president’s political theatre.”
Similarly, state Rep. Karen Brownlee (D-Symmes Township) called the deployment a “political stunt at the taxpayers’ expense.”
U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman also sent us a statement regarding the deployment.
“Public safety has to be a top priority, so if the Ohio National Guard can be leveraged in a supplemental way and local leaders can make it work, great. But if it’s forced on folks and separated from what local police are trained to do day in and day out, it can lead to chaos,” the statement says. “What local governments need most right now is more funding to hire law enforcement and get guns off the streets. And they need the federal government to be an active partner on this — not keep cutting funding and cutting support.”
DeWine responded to the criticism by saying that the state has sent troops to several cities and states, Republican and Democratic, when they’ve been asked for help in the past.
“All the uproar about me approving 150 MPs who are in our National Guard, I think, is kinda ridiculous,” DeWine said. “Whether or not they should’ve been sent in by the president is totally irrelevant. We’re there to back them up.”
On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno held a press conference in Cincinnati alongside Ohio General Attorney Dave Yost, after meeting with local, state and federal leaders about safety and crime in the city.
He said he supports the deployment to D.C.
“There was an intern that got murdered two blocks from where I live,” said Moreno. “That is unacceptable, and President Trump has said that’s no longer gonna be the norm. Has changed it in just 7 days.”
I asked Moreno about recent claims that he wants to send the Ohio National Guard to Cincinnati. He said that’s not the plan at this time.
“I think what you’re seeing here, in Cincinnati, at least from my take from the meeting that we just came from, is that the local officials are gonna do what they need to do to make sure we don’t have to get there,” said Moreno.
City officials this week outlined some of the assistance they are receiving from the state, weeks after DeWine's offer of resources.
