EXCLUSIVE: How DC Police Manipulate Crime Stats To Provide False Veneer Of Safety

As the House Oversight Committee investigates claims that Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) leadership is intentionally manipulating crime data, two sources familiar with the process described firsthand accounts of how the city downplays its violent crime problem.

The sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, told the Caller that the MPD and the D.C. government routinely allowed suspects to “wiggle out of … more serious charges,” starting with arrests at the scene of the crime all the way to the court room. Directives to minimize violent crime reports were “pervasive from the top, all the way down,” one source alleged.

A reserve officer with MPD told the Caller that much of the minimization happens at the scene because responding officers cannot classify violent crimes themselves. Instead, those decisions are left to supervisors like sergeants, lieutenants or detectives. (RELATED: Man Who Allegedly Threatened To Blow Up Catholic Church Was Anti-ICE And SCOTUS, Docs Say)

“They make you call an official, like a sergeant and the lieutenant on the scene to make that decision. Basically, to put people who have skin in the game with the crime stats in the business of deciding whether we should record the stat or not,” the officer explained. 

Taking crime classification decisions away from responding officers also disincentivizes them from recording violent crimes as they may not want to burden a commanding officer with having to go to the scene of the crime.

Two police officers from departments outside of D.C. told the Caller that this practice is not common, explaining that supervisors may offer guidance in tricky cases but ultimately leave charging decisions to be made by the arresting officer.

A Salt Lake City, Utah, officer told the Caller that potential political and financial gains may incentivize department leaders to minimize such violent crimes.

With D.C. constantly under threat of losing “home rule” to the federal government, incentives for creating a perception of lower violent crime rates may be even higher.

The reserve officer explained that a second powerful tool of crime minimization was adopted from the D.C. Council Democrats’ attempt to lower violent crime numbers following a post-COVID spike.

Introduced into law in September 2023, endangerment with a firearm was offered as a substitute for many instances of assault with a dangerous weapon. Although endangerment with a firearm is still classified as a felony, it is not reported as a violent crime like its counterpart.

The officer admitted that in many niche cases, the distinction is helpful, but said that overall “it’s abused, and it’s been abused for a long time.”

“What happens all the time is, from the get-go, crimes are under classified,” the officer said, sharing a story where one person he arrested for firing a gun at a group of people, who “miraculously” didn’t shoot anybody, was charged with endangerment with a firearm instead of assault with a dangerous weapon.

The officer also shared that the mindset of minimization was affecting other crimes as well. He recalled being told to “make sure you have enough evidence that the car was actually stolen and they didn’t just lose it.”

He also offered a hypothetical: If a group of juveniles were to hit someone in the back of the head, causing them to drop their phone, before the delinquent youth picked it up and left with the phone, the officer said that “to you or me, that sounds like a robbery — a violent crime that should be reported,” but to some officials it “was a simple assault” followed by theft rather than being classified as a robbery.

While MPD was not available to offer a complete list of cases of endangerment with a firearm, the Caller was able to find 25 examples of this classification being used during an arrest between September 2023 and the end of 2024. Although many of these charges may have been more accurate to the case, each case would have been considered a violent crime before September 2023, allowing the total violent crime data to drop, while not actually minimizing the number of firearm endangerment incidents in the city.

This number was taken from the MPD’s provided lists of adult and juvenile arrests and does not consider every account of endangerment with a firearm, including cases where no arrests were made.

The Caller previously reported that MPD’s violent crime statistics are misleading, as the department only counts homicide, assault with a dangerous weapon, robbery and sex abuse as violent crimes presented in its daily updates. However, D.C. law classifies several other offenses as “crimes of violence,” including aggravated assault, acts of terrorism, kidnapping, malicious disfigurement and manslaughter, which are not considered in their stated violent crime total.

The source familiar said that MPD does not use the FBI-endorsed and nationally used National Incident-Based Reporting System, which collects data for 52 violent offenses, rather than MPD’s four.

With a near one-third drop in homicide rates — something a little harder to minimize — between 2023 and 2024, it is likely that the city was doing more to tackle the crime spike. However, there is still the discrepancy between the city achieving a stated 35% decrease in violent crime between 2023 and 2024 while only a 15% decrease in total crime during those same years.

The officer warned that such minimization may give people “a false sense of security” and may explain why “D.C. says crime’s down, but people still don’t feel safe.” (RELATED: DC Police Sergeant Arrested In Chaotic Chase With Federal Agents Despite Liberals Insisting City Is Safe)

Even if MPD officials agree to crime classifications recommended by their officers, there is a large possibility that a formal charge is never even issued.

D.C.’s “papering” process, the stage where prosecutors decide which arrests lead to formal charges, is structurally unique from other major U.S. cities. In the capital, this decision is made not by a locally elected district attorney but by the federally appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who handles all adult felony and most misdemeanor cases. The locally elected D.C. attorney general handles juvenile cases and certain minor adult offenses.

During the papering process, the prosecutor has the discretion to cancel the charge, downgrade the offense to a lesser crime, or pursue the original charge, creating the central bottleneck in D.C.’s public safety system.

“Before President Trump came in for his second term, less than half of the cases were being papered. Every other person that you would arrest, they would never pursue the case,” one source familiar said. “I went a couple of years with every single person I arrested [not being papered] — it wasn’t good. The charge was not being pursued.”

The officer said this was particularly a problem with President Joe Biden’s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, who he said would rarely prosecute assaults against police officers, as doing so would necessitate a trial by jury.

In 2023, Graves said that his office did not prosecute 42% of cases, according to NBC4

“Seems to have gotten better now,” the officer said, referring to President Donald Trump’s appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, and his use of the National Guard in the city over the summer.

One source familiar said that he believes the mere presence of Trump’s National Guard may be disincentivizing crime across the city.

The House Oversight Committee launched its investigation into D.C. crime stat manipulation following the former commander of the 3rd District being placed on paid administrative leave in mid-May over allegations that he altered crime reports.

MPD confirmed to the Caller that the former commander is on administrative leave, but said that they cannot comment on active internal investigations and personnel matters. 

The officer told the Caller that rumors are circulating in the department that the commander changed the classification of an offense to a less serious one after being instructed to do so by his superiors. “If that’s happening, it’s happening in a very small number of cases and would be highly unusual and very inappropriate,” the officer added.

“The Metropolitan Police Department is committed to upholding the trust and the confidence of the public.” Chief Pamela A. Smith said, according to a statement sent from MPD to the Caller. (RELATED: Illegal Gangbanger Placed Bounty On Top Border Official, Feds Say)

“Any irregularity in crime data brought to my attention will be addressed immediately. I do not condone any official reclassifying of criminal offenses outside the guidelines set in MPD policy,” Smith added. “Any allegation of this behavior will be dealt with through our internal processes, which will ensure those members are held accountable.”

“I have the utmost confidence in the command staff leadership currently in place across the Metropolitan Police Department,” the statement concluded.