The shift comes after defense officials said the soldiers deployed to the capital wouldn’t be armed.

The influx came the morning after the Republican president announced he would be activating the guard members and taking over the District’s police department, something the law allows him to do temporarily.

Dressed in camouflage fatigues, National Guard troops patrolled areas of Washington Thursday, dispatched by President Donald Trump to police what he has called "out of control crime" in the city.

A significantly larger National Guard presence is expected across Washington, D.C. starting Wednesday, as operations shift from evening patrols to around-the-clock deployment, according to a White House official.

After President Donald Trump's announcement that his administration would take over Washington’s police department for at least a month, hundreds of members of the National Guard began to arrive