In 1989, Donald Trump purchased full page ads in four New York newspapers, including the New York Times, calling for the return of the death penalty after a white jogger was brutally attacked in Central Park.

Five black and Latino teens were arrested for the assault, and, after confessions later determined to have been coerced by the police, they were convicted, even though there was no physical evidence linking any of them to the crime.

In 2002, after the five young men had spent years in prison for a crime they did not commit, their convictions were vacated when DNA evidence linked a serial rapist, Matias Reyes, to the crime. Reyes ultimately confessed, and provided an accounting of the crime that matched details prosecutors already knew about the case, and forensics confirmed that he had acted alone.

After the crime was solved, the case became symbolic for systemic injustice, police brutality, and racial profiling. Trump never apologized to the five men, and has never acknowledged what would have happened to them had his death penalty campaign succeeded. 

Trump’s confession then and now: He wants to hate

Trump’s vitriol has percolated in the intervening decades since the Central Park Five. After his full page ads claimed that “roving bands of wild criminals” were controlling NYC streets in 1989, this week he claimed that “roving mobs of wild youth” are terrorizing streets in DC.

Again using inaccurate claims to portray soaring violence, Trump announced on Monday that he was deploying the National Guard and federalizing the DC police department in order to rein in “complete and total lawlessness.” Trump’s falsified charts with selectively outdated DC crime statistics were so patently wrong he was fact-checked by the BBC, NPR, NYT, PBS and the Justice Department, whose data show that violent crime in Washington DC is at a 30-year low.

Trump’s addiction to hate and division, promoted through falsehoods, has persisted since the Central Park crime. When then-Mayor Koch called for public healing, seeking to unite rather than divide his city, Trump wasn’t having it. Trump’s ad shot back, “Maybe hate is what we need… I want to hate these muggers and murderers... They should be forced to suffer … Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will…”

Trump’s consistent support for police brutality

Trump’s death penalty ads also revealed his relatively young thirst for police brutality. He wrote in 1989 that police should be “unshackled” from the constant threat of being called to account for “police brutality,” a sentiment he has echoed ever since:

• In a 2017 speech, Trump said police should not to be “nice” to suspects and encouraged arresting officers not to shield suspects’ heads as they loaded them into squad cars;
• In 2020, he celebrated the police killing of Micael Reinoehl, a community activist; 
• In 2020, in response to protests over police brutality in the George Floyd case, he asked his staff if the protestors couldn’t “just be shot;”
• In 2023, he said police should respond to shoplifters by shooting them;
• In 2024, he said that one day of “violent policing” would end crime, suggesting that if police were free to brutalize the population, crime would disappear;
• In April 2025, he issued an Executive Order “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement” promoting aggressive police tactics and making it more difficult to punish brutality; and
• On August 11, 2025, announcing his “federal takeover” of Washington DC, Trump said police and military forces could “do whatever the hell they want” to people on the streets, expressly encouraging brutality.

The obvious problem with getting “tougher” on crime, without addressing community needs, is that it doesn’t work, and often leads to an increase in crime.  Trump’s ineptitude also undermines police accountability efforts, further eroding trust between police and communities. By encouraging police to use excessive force, Trump spreads distrust of police among the public, needlessly endangering the lives of both citizens and police.

We now know that, aside from the DC “takeover,” Trump is developing a National Guard “strike force” to confront and quell protests, demonstrations, and civil dissent. This “strike force” will act as Trump’s personal militia to crush constitutionally protected speech, in democrat-run cities, located in democrat-run states.

The purpose of Trump’s “takeover” of Washington DC isn’t to address escalating crime, because DC crime isn’t escalating. It isn’t to deal with potholes, beautification, or anything else Trump mentioned in his incoherent Aug. 11 press conference.

Trump is “taking over” DC, sending in federal troops just as he did in LA, to normalize an expanded police state. He hopes to control DC until it’s time for a Jan. 6 rerun, as he scales his 1989 declaration of hate, control, and brutality nationwide.