The Nation

08/29/2025

OCCUPIED WASHINGTON, DC—When the night comes, it is not just the National Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a jumpy police department walking the streets. In an otherwise eerily quiet city, the people are present as well. Armed only with cell phones, medical kits, and the confidence to assert their dwindling rights, groups of local residents trail and record Trump’s occupation forces. They’re known as the night patrols.

These night patrols watch over the city to ensure that people are protected from state violence, false arrest, abduction, and harassment. Failing that, their goal is to document the constitutional violations or brutality they witness, so people can see the truths about the occupation that a compliant, largely incurious media are not showing. Their footage has gone viral and exposed the mainstream media’s lies about how happy DC residents are to see the South Carolina National Guard marching by their kid’s elementary school.

There is no centralized night-patrol planning committee. People in different groups don’t necessarily know each other, but everyone with whom we spoke was either experienced in this kind of work through previous cop-watch trainings or are compelled by what is happening to play their part in making sure the foot soldiers of the surveillance state know they too are being surveilled.

Every night patrol is different. One volunteer told us that it “fluctuates depending on events and community needs. Different crews have their own rhythms.” Sometimes that means groups are small—maybe just three or four people—and other times it means flooding the streets with rallies that turn into patrols when the speeches are done. Above all else, it is a commitment to peaceful, legal, and direct confrontation. The people who do night patrol work are serious, and if you volunteer, they expect you to know what you are doing or listen to those who do.