Trump: 'No Choice' but Death Penalty for Murders in D.C.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that his administration will seek to enforce the death penalty for anyone found guilty of killing another person in Washington, D.C., telling members of his Cabinet that "we have no choice."

"That's a very strong preventative," Trump said during the meeting, which was televised on Newsmax. "Everybody that's heard it agrees with it. I don't know if we're ready for it in this country ... but we have no choice."

He added that "states are going to have to make their own decision," but in D.C., "if somebody kills somebody ... It's the death penalty."

Trump's remarks to his Cabinet came during the third week of his federal takeover of the D.C. policing, and after the city's 12-day period without homicides ended early Tuesday morning.

Metropolitan Police said a man was found with a gunshot wound shortly after midnight Tuesday and died at a nearby hospital, reports The Washington Examiner.

Trump, shortly after taking office in January, signed an executive order to restore the death penalty, specifically calling for the attorney general to seek the death penalty for every federal crime when a law enforcement officer was murdered, or when an undocumented immigrant kills someone.

The Washington, D.C., City Council repealed the death penalty several decades ago, reports WJLA in Arlington.

Federal law, however, does allow the death penalty in certain cases in the capital, reports Reuters. The U.S. Attorney's Office in the District handles both local and federal prosecutions, and the Trump administration has recently pressed prosecutors to pursue federal charges in its crackdown.

Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this year lifted a Biden-era pause on most federal executions.

The administration's zero-homicide streak started on Aug. 13, two days after Trump announced he was federalizing the capital and one day after he deployed the National Guard.

The 12-day streak was not a record, however, as police data shows the capital had a 16-day period without murders from Feb. 25 to March 12, the longest in six years. The death ends the Trump administration’s zero-homicide streak, which began on Aug. 13.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, celebrated the city's no-homicide streak on Monday with a post on X, where she said police made 1,007 arrests and took 111 illegal guns off the streets in the days after Trump announced he was federalizing the city.

Official data, meanwhile, shows that there were 274 homicides in the nation's capital in 2023, the most since 1997.

Legal experts note that seeking the death penalty for homicides in Washington would likely increase the number of defendants on federal death row. Such prosecutions typically take years to resolve due to lengthy appeals processes.

With information from wire reports.

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