Crime overall is down. Donald is just looking for an excuse to stick it to his perceived enemies. Calling the military for ordinary street mugging is authoritarianism.
To preface, I don't doubt that Trump grinding axes for personal grudges is a factor...
That aspect aside
With regards to the reports of falling crime, and that clashing with public perception, I suspect there's a couple things at play...
1) Are these reports of falling crime leveraging the NIBRS reporting system? If so, there's a major issue with that
Here are four reasons to worry about the missing national crime data.
www.themarshallproject.org
2) Things like decriminalization of certain things and declining arrest rates probably explain some of the disconnect as well. (for instance, if a person spent the first 60 years of their life in an environment where "doing drugs out in public is criminal", that act getting decriminalized or deprioritized for enforcement isn't going to change their perception overnight)
3) It sounds like with DC in particular, some residents are questioning the official stats.
D.C. residents voice frustration over rising violence, questioning police stats and demanding real action to make neighborhoods feel safe again.
www.wusa9.com
One factor possibly driving it is that DC is somewhat unique in that they have an almost stunningly low "action" rate on crimes that are reported.
(prosecutors declined to take action on 2/3 of the referrals for the local DC cases)
The gap between arrests and criminal charges has widened in recent years. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says unreliable forensic evidence and body camera footage are contributing factors.
washingtoncitypaper.com
The reason for this is because of the unique situation of them having a local PD (like a regular city), but the actual prosecution and filing of charges happens from the USAO who's also in charge of handling important federal-level cases, and trying to play the role of city prosecutor on the side.
I think it goes without saying that if a Federal prosecutor looks at the reports on his desk and sees "multi-million dollar embezzling ring", "child exploitation producer" and "3 teens broke into car and stole iPhone"...it's pretty clear which one is going to get "bumped for time" if there are resource constraints. (noting that DC is one of the most active Federal District in the country for taking on federal crime cases) They're going to say "nah, cut 'em loose, I don't have time to deal with that, I have a human trafficking case to focus on"
D.C.’s Department of Forensics also lost its accreditation 3 years ago, limiting prosecution capacity by making reliable testing for firearms, DNA, and drugs harder to obtain. They actually had to send things to external labs when they wanted something tested (not sure if they ever got that rectified)
So, given all of that as a backdrop, "the official reported stats say DC crime is down" doesn't necessarily mean
"fewer people committed crimes"
"there are fewer dangerous people on the streets"
"justice was served to a criminal"