Local law enforcement, at President Donald Trump’s directive, cleared four unhoused encampment sites near Washington Circle and L Street late Friday morning after federal officers failed to sweep the sites Thursday night.
The sweeps, conducted by Metropolitan Police Department and Department of Public Works officers, cleared at least seven tents and evicted at least four unhoused individuals from encampments at 22nd and K streets, Washington Circle and K street and 26th and L streets. The clearings come after two separate groups of federal agents arrived to evict residents near Washington Circle Thursday night — three days after Trump federalized the MPD and deployed 800 National Guard troops and other federal agents throughout the city, in part to clear unhoused encampments — but left after a resident showed the agents a sticker from the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Service indicating she had until Monday to leave.
At 10:54 a.m. on Friday, University officials issued a GW Alert notifying the community of urgent police activity at Washington Circle. Some D.C. residents posted photos and videos of the officers and multiple garbage trucks around the Washington Circle area around the same time on X, formerly known as Twitter.
About six MPD agents monitored each of the three Washington Circle encampment sites as DPW officials cleaned up the areas using a garbage truck at each location. At about 11:12 a.m., the trucks and MPD officers left the areas of the three Washington Circle sites.
Shortly after, a garbage truck and about eight MPD officers began clearing another encampment at 26th and L streets. At 11:33 a.m., about twenty MPD vehicles and the garbage trucks from the operations lined the 2600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue before headings toward Georgetown.
No federal agents were visibly present for Friday’s clearing.
The MPD and DMHHS did not immediately return a request for comment about each department’s respective roles in the clearings and their coordination with federal officials from the night before. DPW deferred comment to DMHHS and the GW Police Department deferred comment to MPD.
A spokesperson for DMHHS told Street Sense that the agency was not involved in the clearing at Washington Circle on Friday.
“The District had a scheduled engagement to close the site at Washington Circle on August 18,” a spokesperson said in a statement to Street Sense. “However, today, federal officials chose to execute the closure at the site and several others.”
Trump on Monday called the city one of the “worst places on earth” and mobilized Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin a takeover of the police force to “rescue” D.C. from crime — despite violent crime dropping 35 percent in 2024 and crime rates in D.C. clocking in at a 30-year low.
Trump’s takeover of the MPD is the first time a president has invoked section 740 of D.C.’s Home Rule Act, which allows the executive to take control of the police force if they declare a public emergency. The law authorizes federal control for up to 30 days unless a joint resolution passes Congress allowing an extension.
The D.C. Home Rule Act, passed by Congress in 1973, authorizes the president to assume federal control of D.C. police if he declares a public emergency. The law states the takeover can last a maximum of 30 days, unless Congress passes a joint resolution authorizing an extension. A White House official confirmed to the New York Times on Monday that the administration plans the takeover to last the maximum duration of 30 days.
In addition to the MPD and National Guard, Trump mobilized the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Park Police, U.S. Capitol Police, Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Protective Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration. They also deployed agents from Enforcement and Removal Operations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia throughout the city.
Meghann Abraham, one of the residents of the encampment at Washington Circle and K Street near the Milken Institute School of Public Health building, told reporters after the clearing, including Fox 5 D.C., that officials did not give her a warning that they were coming and began taking her tent down as she was trying to get her belongings together.
Abraham said she did not notice any other officials besides MPD officers during the clearing, and she tried to call DMHHS but by the time she got in contact with someone, her tent was already being cleared into the garbage truck. She told a Hatchet reporter Thursday night that she’d previously spent time in shelters but found she felt safer when she was living on the street.
The clearing was not posted on a DMHHS web page that lists the schedule of encampment clean-ups.
Unhoused residents and advocates braced for encampment clearings by federal agents across the District on Thursday evening, which were expected to begin around 6:30 p.m. — although Thursday’s sweeps did not pan out in the force they were advertised to be.
It’s unclear why officials didn’t follow through on their original pledge, but organizations across the city who support the District’s unhoused population urged individuals living in tents on Thursday to remove their personal belongings and find a safe place to stay before the expected clearings — a move that saw some success. When federal officials went to clear an area outside of the Martin Luther King Jr. library Thursday night, they arrived to find all of the unhoused residents had already left the area, leaving behind some of their belongings.
DMHHS and Department of Behavioral Health officials urged unhoused individuals living Foggy Bottom near the Kennedy Center, the E Street Expressway and Virginia Avenue to move their tents on Wednesday and Thursday, Street Sense reported. District officials cleared another encampment with seven tents near the I-66 ramp earlier in the day Thursday.
Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage, who was at Washington Circle on Thursday night, said encampment clearings have always been a District operation since they began in 2018 and never involved federal agents.
“When we close sites, like we did earlier today, we use our protocol, and our protocol is very effective for treating residents with respect, to help them take care of their belongings, and we try to move into homeless services, so we will continue to do that when we’re in the lead role,’ Turnage said Thursday night.
Ward 3 Councilmember Matthew Frumin was also present Thursday night.
District officials have evicted at least 81 people in Foggy Bottom during encampment clearings since the start of 2024, in multiple areas near E Street and Virginia Avenue. Local leaders expressed fear in March that District officials would abandon traditional practices when sweeping encampments under the Trump administration, following a protocol violation during the clearing of a site near the E Street Expressway after Trump posted about it on Truth Social.
Trump issued an executive order on March 28 calling for the National Park Service to promptly remove “homeless or vagrant encampments” on D.C.’s federal land. District officials subsequently cleared two unhoused encampments in Foggy Bottom in May, evicting about six people.
Jenna Lee and Fiona Riley contributed reporting.
