House Republicans Just Dropped a Bombshell About DC Crime Rates

Jeff Charles / Townhall Tipsheet

 

The House Oversight Committee released a report on Sunday alleging that the leadership of Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department fudged the district’s crime numbers to make it appear as if the department was performing better than it actually was.

The findings of the report are based on multiple transcribed interviews with commanders of D.C.’s patrol districts, including one who was placed on leave.

The report suggests MPD leaders under Chief Pamela Smith’s leadership pressured commanders to keep the “public” crime numbers low, even if that meant altering how certain offenses were labeled. D.C. has been a high-crime area for decades, and Smith wanted to make it appear that crime was declining at a faster pace.

Commanders told investigators that they were “not only pressured, but also instructed, to lower crime classifications to lesser intermediate offenses in such a way that those offenses would not be included in the DCR reported to the public.” Read more, see X and video here.