Fact-check: Legacy media’s bogus defense of DC’s safe-streets narrative crumbles under scrutiny

The Democrats’ media allies are arguing that President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C., was unwarranted due to sharply decreasing crime rates. However, these reports do not provide a complete and accurate picture of the crime crisis in the area.

Since February, Trump has repeatedly warned D.C. leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), that the federal government will intervene unless the nation’s capital is cleaned up.

‘Unfortunately, while Fake News journalists and politicians go out of their way to claim otherwise, the reality is that our nation’s capital is anything but safe.’

Trump declared Monday “Liberation Day” for D.C., unveiling a plan to rescue it from “bedlam and squalor.” His decision to place the Metropolitan Police under federal control and deploy National Guard troops was apparently prompted by the recent mugging of a former Department of Government Efficiency employee.

“The murder rate in Washington today is bigger than that of Bogota, Colombia; Mexico City — some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on Earth,” he said. “Murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever.”

The legacy media was quick to portray Bowser as the victim, yet during a Sunday interview with MSNBC, the mayor admitted that D.C. needs assistance.

“We do need the federal government’s help,” Bowser said, listing several ways the Trump administration could assist, including “making sure that federal law enforcement is doing all of the policing that they can do.”

RELATED: ‘Knock the hell out of them’: Trump federalizes DC police, readies National Guard to crack down on crime

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

While Bowser thanked several federal law enforcement agencies for their assistance, she has still maintained that D.C. is “not experiencing a spike in crime but a decrease in crime.”

Many legacy media reports attempted to debunk Trump’s claims about high crime rates by referring to statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department. However, they failed to mention that the D.C. Police Union has long accused the MPD of manipulating its crime data to appear lower. MPD Police Commander Michael Pulliam was reportedly placed on paid administrative leave in May following the union’s allegations.

Gregg Pemberton, the chairman of the D.C. Police Union, explained how the MPD was allegedly altering the data. He stated that some of the department’s lieutenants and captains were instructing officers to file reports for lesser offenses.

“Instead of taking a report for a shooting or a stabbing or a carjacking, they will order that officer to take a report for a theft or an injured person to the hospital or a felony assault, which is not the same type of classification,” Pemberton told WRC-TV.

He alleged that crimes that should be reported as involving a suspect armed with a dangerous weapon have instead been documented as felony assaults. He noted that felony assaults are not listed on the MPD’s daily crime stats, and they are not a requirement of the FBI’s uniform crime reporting program either.

Pemberton claimed that there is “absolutely no way” crime in D.C. has declined as significantly as reported by the MPD.

RELATED: DC police commander under investigation for allegedly manipulating crime stats

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

As of Tuesday afternoon, the department’s website indicated that violent crime has decreased by 26% compared to last year. The MPD reported a 35% decline in violent crime from 2023 to 2024.

Yet FBI crime data indicated that by June 2024, reported aggravated assaults reached 375, a figure not seen since before 2020.

The FBI’s data revealed that homicide rates have been steadily increasing over the past decade, peaking at 33 in August 2023. Reported robberies also reached a high of 501 in July 2023. Motor vehicle thefts have significantly risen since 2015, exceeding 700 incidents for three consecutive months in 2023. The most recent data shows 425 reported thefts in December 2024, which represents a 48% increase compared to the same period in 2014.

Initial data from the FBI is based on reports from local departments. Therefore, if the MPD manipulated its crime stats, those inaccuracies would likely still be reflected in the FBI’s recent reports. Additionally, FBI crime reports do not include data from D.C. for 2021 and 2022 because the federal agency was transitioning from its older Summary Reporting System to the National Incident-Based Reporting System.

Timothy H.J. Nerozzi, a foreign correspondent for the Washington Examiner, disputed claims that D.C. is safe.

“I am the man on the ground in DC here to tell you all that any journalists claiming the crime problem is anything less than horrific is intentionally lying to you. It is omnipresent from the Metro to the city outskirts. It is obvious and unignorable,” Nerozzi wrote in a post on social media.

Blaze News senior politics editor and D.C. correspondent Christopher Bedford claimed that just six weeks ago, he was “menaced” by “a dangerous, high vagrant while eating lunch.”

“I lived here 18 years before I sold my house because violence and open-air gun markets had made my once-decent neighborhood unlivable for my family. I now commute,” Bedford added.

A Washington Post report attempted to partially debunk Trump’s claims, but it was brutally mocked for quoting a resident who insisted that D.C. is “a safe city” but who chose to remain anonymous “over concerns of personal safety.”

“Washington, D.C., should be a symbol of pride and patriotism for the American people — and a safe location for tourists, residents, and public servants. Unfortunately, while Fake News journalists and politicians go out of their way to claim otherwise, the reality is that our nation’s capital is anything but safe,” a White House report read.

“Many residents don’t feel safe reporting crime,” it continued. “More than half of all violent crime in the U.S. goes unreported in the first place.”

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