The final number of guards to be approved is expected to be finalized Monday when Whitley meets with Bowser. If an agreement is reached, the initial deployment could be several hundred forces. The official highlighted final details of a deployment are still being discussed.
“The military is reviewing a request from the Washington, DC City Government to support the Columbia District National Guard to the Metropolitan Police Department during the expected upcoming demonstrations for the first amendment,” an Army official told CNN. The official noted that the exact wording of the formally approved statement did not refer to the Chauvin trial, but said that was what the statement referred to.
The Pentagon later Monday acknowledged the request for help from the National Guard, with Pentagon spokesman John Kirby saying “there is a request the military is currently looking at” but declined to provide further details.
Under the laws that apply to the DC National Guard, the president retains the authority to deploy the guard. The authority is currently vested in the military.
The request was made on April 8 in a letter from dr. Christopher Rodriguez, Director of DC Homeland Security, to the DC Commander-in-Chief, Maj. Gen. William Walker. It was not stated how many total national guards were requested, but said that the bulk of it would be divided into six “crowd management teams” at various metro stations and others to assist at thirty designated traffic posts. ”
“The mission of the DCNG during this activation is primarily crowd management, ‘Quick Response Force’ (QRF) and to assist in blocking vehicles at traffic posts,” Rodriguez writes. The QRF will be presented in the DC Armor “with the ability to respond to a request for assistance within thirty minutes.”
Rodriguez called the request Monday “precautionary” and said they had asked the National Guard to support the DC Metropolitan Police Department with traffic management and security at public transportation stations, as well as a rapid response force of guards involved in the event of “large-scale protests.” He said that if the request is approved, the auxiliary guards will not be armed, noting that only the president can sign to arm the DC National Guard.
This story was updated on Monday with additional details.
CNN’s Chandelis Duster, Michael Conte and Alex Marquardt contributed to this report.