WASHINGTON, D.C. (7News) — The D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety is holding a performance oversight hearing on several agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Nearly 120 people are signed up to testify at Wednesday’s hearing, the bulk of which for MPD. The committee will hear from representatives and public witnesses for the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and the Office of Police Complaints before MPD public witnesses. MPD Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll is scheduled to testify last.

“Today’s oversight hearing really continues our efforts over the last several months to work with MPD and get a better understanding of how things have changed since the increase of federal presence in our city since August,” Committee Chairwoman Brooke Pinto told 7News ahead of the hearing.

“There is always an element of the local government working with the federal government and things like FBI and ATF to get illegal guns off the street, to pursue drug cases — that level of coordination happens in any administration,” she continued. “But what we’ve seen this year is different: of National Guard troops coming to the city from all over the country, of HSI agents handling immigration enforcement, really threatening and terrorizing many of our immigrant communities who are feeling unsafe and unsure to go about their daily lives. And while we don’t have oversight over those federal agencies, it’s really important that our local Metropolitan Police Department is following our laws and is making sure that they are pursuing the public interest and protecting the public.”

In December, Pinto’s committee held a hearing on public safety in the District. Overwhelmingly, people who testified in the 12-hour hearing brought up concerns with the ongoing National Guard presence and the federal law enforcement surge, as well as the Metropolitan Police Department’s increased cooperation with immigration enforcement.

Two weeks later, Pinto led the council to send a letter to the interim chief requesting clarification about the extent of coordination amid the federal surge and under the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which was created by a March presidential executive order last year. Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll responded, stating MPD is not working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but that “[M]any of the federal agencies MPD is working with during this period of enhanced federal partnership, and with which MPD has long-established relationships, now have authority to conduct civil immigration enforcement.”

The interim chief’s letter did not include the requested arrest numbers from joint patrols with federal agents, so Pinto’s committee repeated a request for those answers ahead of the oversight hearing.

In a 246-page letter sent Monday, MPD states the department does not track federal arrests made in joint patrols. The letter goes on to list federal agencies that participated in joint patrols between August and December that do not have an active cooperative agreement with MPD, or that did not have an active cooperative agreement at the time of the joint patrols, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations.

“When it came to the federal questions, many of their responses were that they don’t track this information, and so one of the things I’m trying to get at today is: how can we track this information we should have access to know who is coming to roll call, where are officers being deployed?” Pinto told 7News. “We have the best police department in the country. Our officers go through robust training. We have some of the highest standards in the country, and that should be maintained and honored. And when we have these other agents here from other parts of the country or other agencies that aren’t accustomed to our practices and rules, that creates a challenge. And so that is really front of mind today for me to talk to MPD about.”

The parents of the National Guard member who was shot and killed in an ambush attack in D.C. last year are expected to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Trump invited Specialist Sarah Beckstrom’s parents, a White House official confirmed to NBC News.

Beckstrom was one of two members of the West Virginia National Guard who a gunman targeted in an attack just blocks from the White House on Nov. 26. She died a day later, on Thanksgiving Day, at age 20.

Beckstrom, from Webster Springs, West Virginia, joined the guard in June 2023 and was preparing for a career in federal law enforcement, people who knew her told News4.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe survived being shot in the head.

Suspected shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal was charged with murder. Prosecutors say he drove from his home in Washington state and “purposely and with deliberate and premeditated malice” shot the guard members.

State of the Union guests invited by Trump also include Erika Kirk, the widow of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, NBC News reported.

Learn the origins of one of the most important political events of the year in the U.S. and other interesting facts.

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