As I pointed out here the media has been pretty uniform, almost uncannily so, in responding to President Trump's decision to take over the DC police and crack down on crime. Every news outlet is eager to point out that crime stats show crime in the city is down and no one (with the exception of Megan McArdle) is willing to admit that even with that decline crime in DC is much higher than in other major cities.
D.C. had 187 homicides in 2024, or about 27 for every 100,000 residents. That is, to be sure, a massive 32 percent drop from the 273 people who were killed in 2023, but that probably wasn’t much comfort to those 187 people or their grieving families. And it’s horrific compared with Boston, which had 3.7 homicides per 100,000 residents during that same time frame, New York City (4.7) or Los Angeles (7.1).
If your murder rate is triple the rate in LA and five times the rate in New York, you probably shouldn't be bragging about the decline in violent crime. As I also pointed out, there are reasons to question how reliable some of the city's crime stats are. The city's police union has claimed there is a concerted effort to down charge crimes.
The union claims police supervisors in the department manipulate crime data to make it appear violent crime has fallen considerably compared to last year...
“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,” Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Gregg Pemberton said. “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.”
Beege just wrote a really good post about a lawsuit the city just settled. The lawsuit was filed by a former Metropolitan Police Department sergeant named Charlotte Djossou who accused department leadership of...you guessed it...misclassifying crime to deflate the crime stats. If you haven't read Beege's post, definitely go check it out.
And there's yet another story out today suggesting the city is downplaying crime to the public. This one comes from a victim of a violent crime in DC who says despite a violent assault which led to an arrest and conviction there's no record of the crime in the DC crime stats. The victim's name is Anna Giaritelli. Here's her account of what happened to her in 2020.
On a Saturday morning in 2020, I walked out of my apartment on Capitol Hill to mail a package at a post office several blocks from the U.S. Capitol. I put on my black sweatshirt and black sweatpants then headed out the door.
I never made it to the post office.
Just one block from my apartment building’s entrance, I was attacked by a large man well over six feet tall. He charged at me for a reason that I still do not understand. In broad daylight and on well-traveled 2nd Street NE next to Union Station, I fought to get away as he sexually assaulted me. If it had not been for others in the vicinity, including a construction worker named Donny who heard my screaming and ran to my rescue, I don’t know if I would be here today.
Thank God for Donny the construction worker. He deserves a medal. Police found and arrested the homeless guy who'd assaulted her a few months later, but a judge put him back on the street where he remained for over a year, despite numerous subsequent arrests.
The assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted my case told me it was to keep the D.C. jail from overcrowding...
Trial proceedings were set to begin in the fall of 2020, but amid the George Floyd riots in downtown Washington, it was delayed until early 2021. Then, the early 2021 start was delayed until the end of 2021...
He was arrested in five separate incidents after being released, and after each arrest, the judge permitted his immediate release, even when he was caught in public with a machete.
Finally, Giaritelli noticed that, despite her attack ending in a conviction, it never appeared on MPD's crime map.
When I asked MPD in 2020 why my incident was not on its crime map, an MPD spokesman said the city only includes 1st degree felonies under its crime stats. That would mean that for every person robbed, assaulted, or sexually abused in anything less than egregious ways, you have not been counted into the total tally. The pain you suffered was not severe enough, according to MPD’s standards.
It wasn't serious enough? If a sexual assault by a stranger in broad daylight isn't serious enough what is? It sure sounds to me like there are lots of these caveats for crimes in DC that either get downplayed as lesser crimes or simply go unmentioned because someone decided they didn't really count. If they did this once, they've probably done it dozens of times.
Hopefully someone at the DOJ is reading Giaritelli's story today. Now is the perfect time for the DOJ to investigate how the MPD is charging and recording crimes. If there is a pattern of minimizing crime to make the stats look good, find it and put a stop to it.
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