Cleveland and three other Ohio cities have higher violent crime rates than Washington D.C., where National Guard troops from Ohio and other states are helping with what President Trump has called a crime emergency. Gov. Mike DeWine said a multi-agency team will come to Cleveland to help reduce crime, at the request of the city's Democratic mayor.
DeWine said he’s spoken with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb about how the state can help the city reduce crime, and DeWine said he'll send assistance from various state agencies to the city. It'll be similar to the one that’s been helping crack down on crime in Cincinnati recently.
“We can bring in a team involving three or four of our different departments that can help that local community target violent offenders and get them off the street," DeWine said. "That is something we have frankly perfected in Ohio. It works very well.”
DeWine said the team could provide air surveillance, increase information sharing, and enforce Ohio's alcohol laws. And he said they could focus on repeat offenders who illegally carry weapons or commit other crimes at liquor establishments in high-crime areas.
Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed Cleveland's crime rate in 2024 was higher than Washington D.C.'s. Last month DeWine complied with a request from the Secretary of the Army to send 150 members of the Ohio National Guard to D.C. Trump has claimed the city is facing a crime emergency, though statistics show violent crime there is at a 30-year low.
Some Republicans have said they want to see similar action in other cities unless crime rates improve. U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) told the Statehouse News Bureau that believes Cleveland officials “need to get serious about fighting crime” to avoid eventual intervention.
“Cleveland has an extraordinarily high crime rate, and it doesn’t seem like the elected officials there, whether it’s city council, the mayor are doing enough to take care of it,” Moreno said in an interview last week. “As long as these statistics continue to stay this high, we can’t just turn a blind eye.”
But DeWine said there are no plans to send the National Guard into Cleveland or any other Ohio city.
"We will be sending in our team – not the National Guard – but we will be sending in members of the Highway Patrol. That is the most appropriate," DeWine said.
Meanwhile, the 150 guardmembers in the nation's capital, along with National Guard colleagues from five other Republican-run states, will be there until the end of November. But DeWine said they are doing a limited engagement, helping out so local police can focus on crime.
“They are standing guard over buildings, and they are also doing some patrol, but if they get anything that involves crime, they turn that directly over to the D.C. police," DeWine said.
