I literally said "one of the highest" not the absolute highest. Being in a top 10 or 20 list on murder rates is not an achievement to strive for, but it absolutely places you in upper echelon of murder. DC has had 100 murders so far in 2025, just 12 shy of 2024 with 3.5 months to go: https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime
St. Louis situation is absolutely abysmal. 20 is way too high, 69 is way too high. These are 3rd world numbers that are absolutely inexcusable. And we're only talking about murders here, if you look into other violent crime data, it's also substantial for D.C.
The FBI frequently gets involved in murder cases all over the country, there are field offices everywhere. States are significantly different things than the special federal District of Columbia. There, it is generally up to the Governor to deploy the national guard, although plenty of exceptions and precedents exist for the President to do so.
Deployment of the National Guard within a state is at the discretion of that state's governor. DC is the only place the president has jurisdiction in this scenario.
> Deployment of the National Guard within a state is at the discretion of that state's governor.
Legally, there are exceptions to that (primarily the Insurrection Act, though there are some deployments that are permitted within states on federal authority on other legal bases with tightly-constrained functions), and practically, the legal limits don't matter because response time off the courts is to slow for them to act as a meaningful brake. (E.g., the lawsuit filed the first court day after the order to mobilize the guard for LA just reached the trial stage this week.)
... except this president federalized and deployed the national guard in California only earlier this summer, over the objections of the state's governor, so is that rule still a rule?
He was able to provide a justification, however thin, which he presumably can't in the case of St Louis. Not that I disagree with the general sentiment. He's only doing this as a political stunt and St Louis wouldn't serve that purpose as well even if he could somehow swing it legally.
I'm sure there are also federal buildings in St Louis; the justification from California works almost anywhere.
But critically, the trial in which the legality of that action is considered is happening the week. Whether or not the action is judged to have been a constitutional violation ultimately doesn't matter; the administration did it, and even if the court rules against the administration, it will have been two months too slate. Effectively, the president has demonstrated he can federalize the national guard whether or not the governor consents for long enough to score whatever political/media points he's currently fixated on, and if the legal system stops him, he will have moved on to other issues.
There's exceptions to general rule, the national guard is ultimately a state-federal entity and the President can activate them to enforce federal law. Laws on this go all the way back to 1807. They've been federalized by Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon without consent of the associated Governor.
If by "highest" you mean nineteeth in this year's tally so far, then....I....guess?
https://freedomforallamericans.org/highest-murders-in-us-by-...
St. Louis, MO's rate was 69 per 100k and DC was 17 per 100k.
St. Louis has a murder rate four times DC, yet curiosly no talk of deploying the FBI and national guard there.