US President Donald Trump had placed Washington’s police department under federal control earlier this week.The administration of US President Donald Trump has reversed course and agreed to leave the Washington, DC police chief in control of the department, after Washington officials and the United States Justice Department negotiated a deal at the urging of a federal judge.Trump had placed Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under federal control on Monday and ordered the deployment of 800 National Guard troops onto the streets of the capital, claiming a surge in crime.On Friday afternoon, a deal was hammered out at a federal court hearing after Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb had sought a court order blocking Trump’s police takeover as illegal.Trump administration lawyers conceded that Pamela Smith, the police chief appointed by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, would remain in command of the Metropolitan Police Department, according to the accord presented by the two sides to US District Judge Ana Reyes.But US Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a new memo, directed the district’s police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law.Meanwhile, the precise role of Drug Enforcement Administration head Terry Cole, who had been named by Bondi as the city’s “emergency police commissioner” under Trump’s takeover bid, is still to be hashed out in further talks.In a social media post on Friday evening, Bondi criticised Schwalb, saying he “continues to oppose our efforts to improve public safety …
