Twice, the house he and his wife lived in was struck by a stray bullet. The first time was in December 2013, the day after Christmas. The couple was having dinner in the kitchen when the man heard something upstairs. Upon checking, he saw two bullets near the bay window of the master bedroom, which faces the street.
Eleven years later, in the summer of 2024, his neighbor alerted him while he was outside their apartment about a bullet hole on their home’s brick wall. “I took a look and, sure enough, it was a bullet hole in the mortar between the bricks,” he said.
The couple lived in an area of Washington, D.C., called the U Street Corridor, just a mile away from the Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes, an Anglo-Catholic congregation in the Diocese of Washington. He and his wife have been worshiping at the parish for seven years. The man, who spoke with The Living Church on the condition of anonymity, has lived in the District for over two decades. He clarified that he is not speaking on behalf of the church.
The parishioner and his rector, the Rev. Dominique Peridans, who also spoke with TLC, offer a different view on the federalization of the Metropolitan Police, or the District’s law enforcement agency—one that goes against the narrative labeling the move by the Trump administration on August 11 as an authoritarian takeover, and contrary to Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde’s public stance.
“There’s no change in the environment. I’m not sure what people are imagining,” Peridans said, when asked about steps he is taking to protect parishioners since the federal takeover commenced. “All I can say is that people have different ideas about that here in this church. There are people who are very happy.”
Peridans served as pastor of a young man and young woman, both employees of the Israeli embassy, who were fatally shot a mile away from the church in late May. He described his experience of the city in recent years, including plenty of drug-dealing near the church, which is only seven blocks from the White House. Some parishioners are afraid to attend events at night.
“We have parishioners who do not avail themselves of parking behind us because they have to walk through an alley to get to church which is littered with human fecal matter,” he said.
Both Peridans and the parishioner also referred to an August 12 incident, when a 33-year-old man was shot and killed in Logan Circle, nine hours after President Trump announced the federal takeover of the District police and the deployment of 800 National Guard troops.
Peridans attributed the persistent drug-dealing and dangerous environment in the neighborhood to the city “not doing its job.” He sees people passed out near church property regularly. “The neighborhood here is not an easy neighborhood,” he said, “and it’s been like that for years.” It is part of the reason why some welcome federal intervention, he added.
Trump, who invoked Section 740 of the Home Rule Act of 1973 to initiate the takeover, said in a news conference that the capital city “has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people.” Statistics, however, reveal violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low.
“I understand certain neighborhoods in D.C. are quite nice,” the parishioner said. “I wouldn’t say the entire city is plagued by crime, but there are neighborhoods that continue to have a significant problem with crime.”
In a sign that responses to the issue vary, even within the Episcopal Church, at least one parish that holds a Spanish Eucharist on Sundays canceled a service on August 17, the first Sunday after Trump’s announcement.
“I never thought that I had one day to cancel Sunday worship because it is not safe to our Latino siblings to come to church,” wrote the Rev. Yoimel González Hernández, rector at St. Stephen and the Incarnation, on Facebook. “But here we are … the federal occupation of D.C., with the help of Congress and other authorities, is not keeping our streets and communities safe. They are disappearing people without due process and infringing their rights.”
Social media and news reports cite an increased presence not only of the National Guard but also of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, the main agency charged with carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. A video reported by NBC4 Washington’s Aimee Cho shows a man yelling in Spanish that he is not a criminal, tackled to the ground by ICE officials who were arresting him. In a later broadcast, Cho said that ICE reported the man was an undocumented individual with a criminal record and a removal order.
Other ministries in the area, whose work was affected by the changes of the past 10 days, show continuity in their service. Leaders of Grate Patrol, the ministry of St. Paul’s Parish K Street to the city’s homeless population, expressed concern about homeless encampments being cleared and warnings from the White House that the unhoused will either go to shelters or go to jail.
But leaders Tina Mallett and Glenn Marsh reported that their “homeless friends were treated with respect and not given an ultimatum.” Volunteers who went out last weekend to distribute hundreds of bags of food and gallons of hot coffee found that there were still plenty of people ready to receive breakfast.
In an earlier interview with TLC, Marsh initially wondered if there would be anyone to assist. But their supplies were emptied—all shared with those in need.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
