President Donald Trump has threatened a federal takeover of Washington, D.C., after ex-Department of Government Efficiency staffer Edward Coristine was brutally assaulted by a mob of teenage “thugs” in Dupont Circle over the weekend.
“Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-year-olds, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released,” Trump said on Truth Social. “The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these ‘minors’ as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14.”
Coristine, a 19-year-old software engineer known by his nickname “Big Balls,” was assaulted by at least ten individuals around 3 a.m. on Sunday. When the assailants approached Coristine, he was standing outside his vehicle with his girlfriend, who he pushed into the car “for her safety” before turning to “deal with the suspects,” according to a police report.
The mob then attacked Coristine before police officers patrolling nearby broke up the assault. Police arrested two 15-year-old suspects on scene, one girl and one boy, who have been charged with unarmed carjacking.
Trump posted a photo of Coristine, taken by fellow DOGE staffer Marko Elez, battered and bloody from the attack. Elon Musk posted on X that Coristine “was severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved [his girlfriend].”
“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” Trump said.
Sunday’s attack happened about one mile away from the White House, in an upscale D.C. neighborhood where houses start at around $1.5 million. Days before Coristine’s assault, and blocks away from where he was attacked, a triple shooting took place at 3 a.m. on a Sunday.
The violent assault comes just weeks after a 21-year-old congressional intern was caught and killed in a shootout in Northwest Washington, D.C. Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, an intern for Representative Ron Estes (R., Kan.), was a junior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and was shot alongside a 16-year-old boy and a woman.
D.C. crime runs rampant in other neighborhoods. In April in Navy Yard, a Metro Transit Police Officer was stabbed in the face after a delinquent evaded his fare by hopping over glass gates. A senior House staffer was also the victim of an armed carjacking in Navy Yard this May. Dozens of juveniles who cause disturbances, commit robberies, and assault residents have also been occupying a local Navy Yard park. D.C. police arrested several of the teens in May.
“We want our young people to enjoy everything this city has to offer,” D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said. “However, we will not tolerate criminal behavior that puts others at risk, or disrupts.”
Trump has in the past supported congressional efforts to federally govern D.C.
“I think we should take over Washington, D.C. — make it safe,” he said in February. “People are getting killed, people are being hurt.”
In a partial response to Trump’s comments at the time, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said that, “D.C. is a world-class city,” pointing to “28 consecutive clean audits,” the city’s ranking as a number-one park system, D.C.’s tourism record, and the District’s free museums as proof.