In New Mexico’s most populous city, National Guard troops are listening to the police dispatch calls, monitoring traffic cameras and helping to secure crime scene perimeters, tasks not usually part of the job.

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

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.

It’s a noticeably different situation than the chaotic one that prompted the biggest military callup in Washington since the Civil War – the 1968 riots following the assassination of civil rights leader the Rev.