Crime data from the city’s police department shows burglaries and thefts are down over last year, but crime remains a top concern for people operating storefronts in the District.

“Trump, send your boys to Benning Road,” Tumika Alston, of the 24/7 Best Tobacco shop at the Hechinger Mall in Northeast D.C., said.

“There were like 30 of them that came into the store. They took whatever they wanted, but most of them – they threw it outside, made trash. I don’t know why they did it,” Sajib Uddin said.

He said more kids came back a second time over the weekend, and they’ve since cleaned up and restocked. The Metropolitan Police Department confirm it is investigating the incident.

At first she thought it was a joke: an unknown number calling her cellphone, a voice on the other end saying it was from the White House.

Tumika Alston’s mind began to race: Was this for real? Did something happen? Was she in trouble? Could this be about the store?

Just a few days earlier, Alston had given an interview to a local television station after a legion of teens forced their way into the 24-hour convenience store she owns in Northeast Washington, broke the door, toppled shelves and made off with thousands of dollars in merchandise. She was mad and desperate. So, she told the reporter from channel 7 the first thing that came to mind: “I’m telling Trump, yeah, send the boys to Benning Road.”

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The White House told Alston that the administration was concerned about what had happened at her store, she later recalled, and that it wanted to know more. She agreed to a visit. Maybe that would get her some extra security, she thought, or direct all those cops to someplace they might do some good.

But when the White House team arrived, she said, all they had were cameras.

Link to White House Instagram.


The following day, Alston’s face and story were broadcast to the nearly 13 million people who follow the White House on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Underneath looping grainy surveillance video of the burglary, the White House wrote on its Instagram page: “Tumika’s story is just one of the many the Fake News isn’t reporting.”

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When the White House invited Alston to come in the day after the video was published for a news conference, she declined. She didn’t go on the complimentary tour it offered her, either. Instead, she’s been doing damage control.

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“I feel like they’ve used me to put that story out there just for the narrative, to use it for an excuse, for more troops to be out there harassing people,” Alston said recently. “I want them to take that video down, I really do.”