The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, is facing accusations it routinely manipulates statistics on crimes such as stabbings, shootings and carjackings to make it look like the city is less violent than it is.
The allegations predate President Trump’s intervention in the city deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops over the rash of crime.
At least one high-ranking officer has been suspended so far over the disturbing claims, but the DC Police Union said the practices reflect standard operating procedure across the department.
“When our members respond to the scene of a felony offense where there is a victim reporting that a felony occurred, inevitably there will be a lieutenant or a captain that will show up on that scene and direct those members to take a report for a lesser offense,” DC Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton told NBC Washington last month.
“So 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.”
The department confirmed to the outlet that Michael Pulliam, commander of the city’s 3rd District, was put on paid leave in mid-May — and unnamed law enforcement sources said he was being investigated internally for making questionable changes to crime data.
Pulliam allegedly falsified violent crime statistics to make them appear more favorable for the city, an accusation he denies.
Trump last week invoked section 740 of DC’s Home Rule Act to place the capital’s police force under federal control for 30 days, citing an out-of-control rise in violent crime, particularly among youthful offenders.
“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” Trump said Monday. “And we’re not going to let it happen anymore. We’re not going to take it.”
Trump said the crime crackdown — which he dubbed “Liberation Day” for DC — would include the deployment of 700 National Guard members, with an additional 750 coming from GOP-led South Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia in the days to come.
The move provoked swift condemnation from liberals, who rushed to left-leaning news outlets such as CNN and MSNBC to accuse the president of everything from “federal overreach” to “a power grab” to using the federal takeover as a ploy to get late powerful pedophile Jeffrey Epstein out of the headlines.
Prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York City and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, took to social media to parrot the MPD’s crime stats, which have been thrown into question pending the results of the Pulliam investigation.
“Violent crime in Washington, DC, is at a 30-year low,” Jeffries said Monday. “Donald Trump has no basis to take over the local police department. And zero credibility on the issue of law and order. Get lost.”
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Clinton posted on X last week, “As you listen to an unhinged Trump try to justify deploying the National Guard in DC, here’s reality: Violent crime in DC is at a 30-year low.”
The District of Columbia has the fourth-highest murder rate per capita in the US, according to a February report by Rochester Institute of Technology, seeing 265 murders — a 20-year high — in 2023 and 186 in 2024.
Even with the 30.7% drop in homicides between 2023 and 2024 as recorded by the MPD, DC remained the fourth worst US city for murders per capita, edging out well-known homicide hot spots like Compton, California; Newark, New Jersey and even Chicago.
In announcing the crackdown, President Trump noted that DC’s murder rate even eclipses those of crime-challenged Mexico City and Bogota, Colombia.
The MPD’s data also asserts that violent crime in DC dropped 35% across the board between 2023 (5,345 reported incidents) and 2024 (3,469 incidents).
Pemberton said during an interview on Fox Business that the police union “completely agree[s]” with Trump’s decision to federalize the city’s police force.
“Crime in the district is out of control and something needs to be done about it. This concept that crime is down is really an old trope,” he said.
“They’re using statistics in a way that makes it appear that crime is going down, but our rank-and-file officers know that we’re going call for armed carjackings, stabbings, robberies, shootings, homicides and the crime isn’t going anywhere.”
The Post reached out to the union Sunday but did not immediately hear back.
