Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin established an initiative to pursue firearms cases in an effort to deter violent crime in Washington.
Martin announced a “Make D.C. Safe Again” campaign on Monday aimed at enforcing consequences for gun crimes and seeking more federal district court prosecutions in firearms-related cases.
Federal prosecutors are now under orders to seek pretrial detention against every person charged in firearms cases, and prosecutors will be prohibited from declining to bring firearms charges without a green light from Martin’s top criminal chief, Jonathan Hornok. About a dozen agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives will be reassigned to help with the initiative and assist in reducing violent crime, which Martin said was still “unacceptably common.”
Martin is President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Washington’s top prosecutor but has not yet been confirmed by the Senate. He wrote to staff that the new anti-illegal firearms campaign followed “the direction of President Trump and [Attorney] General Bondi in the recent executive orders and memoranda.”
Trump has long complained about the state of public safety in Washington, characterizing the district as “horribly run” and a “nightmare of murder and crime” last fall.
“This is a whole of office initiative to dramatically change course to fight violent crime. … We will flood the federal district court with cases — and make our city safe,” Martin wrote.
“I listened to the people who want safe streets and love each other. We will together MAKE DC SAFE AGAIN. Thugs With Guns: we comin,’” Martin wrote on X on Saturday.
On Saturday, Martin said the district’s crime rates, which peaked over the past few years before beginning to decline in 2024, were partly due to policies set by his predecessor, former U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves.
“Public stats make one thing clear: My predecessor — his name is Matt Graves — chose to engage in lawfare. As he upped political prosecutions, he steered resources to a now-debunked legal theory that targeted American citizens, and gun prosecutions went down,” Martin said in a social media post.
“Let me be clear: He used our $ to chase political hoaxes while the people of DC were terrorized by thugs with guns,” he continued.
The acting attorney’s words are likely a reference to Graves’s prosecution of the Jan. 6 defendants. The Department of Justice, through Graves’s office, charged nearly 1,500 people in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump and his allies criticized many of the charges as unnecessary and politically motivated while raising concerns about the conditions many defendants encountered in prison.
Once he assumed office after Trump’s inauguration, Martin moved to drop hundreds of pardoned Jan. 6 cases and demoted several senior prosecutors involved in Jan. 6 prosecutions.
Although violent crime is down in Washington by 27% this year compared to 2024 data, homicides are up 11%, according to crime statistics in the district. Property crimes are also down 10%, while burglaries have risen by 9%.
The overall dip comes after the district saw steep spikes in crime between 2021 and 2023, per the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council for the District of Columbia. During that time frame, violent crimes, including robbery, homicide, and sex abuse, increased by 30%. Violent gun crimes increased by 53%.
The decline in public safety happened amid criticism that relaxed crime laws spearheaded after George Floyd’s death in 2020 in the name of social justice and racial equity incentivized an uptick in crime.
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District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser has signaled openness toward working with the Trump administration on public safety problems.
“The federal government does have a role in public safety in the district, unlike most places, because they’re a big part of our criminal justice system, including judges and including prosecutors. So there are things that we can work on together,” she said last month.
