Lies, damn lies, and statistics are a boon for some and the bane of others. It only depends which side you're on, what you need out of them, and the level of one's tolerance for the hanky possible panky - intentional or otherwise - inherent in numbers, their interpretation, and manipulation.
Who ya gonna believe when they wave 'figures' at you?
In the case of President Trump's apparent 'assault' on the self-rule of the nation's capital, those numbers raised defensively against it have been that it is an egregious overstepping of his authority because Washington's crime rate has been getting better all this year.
THE CITY'S CRIME STATISTICS PROVE IT
Statistics rebut Trump’s claims about violent crime in Washington
TRUMP: “It’s getting worse, not getting better. It’s getting worse.”
THE FACTS: Statistics published by Washington’s Metropolitan Police contradict the president and show violent crime has dropped in Washington since a post-pandemic peak in 2023.
According to the data, homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.
A recent Department of Justice report shows that violent crime is down 35% since 2023, returning to the previous trend of decreasing crime that puts the district’s violent crime rate at its lowest in 30 years.
Ah, but as we all have probably heard, a couple of weeks ago, word broke that a D.C. police commander was suspended for massaging those very numbers for his district.
A D.C. police commander is under investigation for allegedly making changes to crime statistics in his district.
Well, hang on a second. Surely it's no big deal if there's only one rotten apple in a barrel, right?
Well, it turns out that the officer was suspended in May and only placed under investigation when he fingered a big guy in the department in an equal opportunity complaint and then his union stepped into the fray.
...The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Michael Pulliam was placed on paid administrative leave in mid-May. That happened just a week after Pulliam filed an equal employment opportunity complaint against an assistant chief and the police union accused the department of deliberately falsifying crime data, according to three law enforcement sources familiar with the complaint.
The union claims police supervisors in the department manipulate crime data to make it appear violent crime has fallen considerably compared to last year.
How do they do this?
The union has been gathering the evidence.
...“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.”
The police department's command staff is focusing on two categories in order to get the numbers to fall, Pemberton said: armed with a dangerous weapon and injured person to the hospital.
“When management officials are directing officers to take reports for felony assault, or if they're going back into police databases and changing offenses to felony assault, felony assault is not a category of crime that's listed on the department's daily crime stats,” Pemberton said. “It's also not something that's a requirement of the FBI's uniform crime reporting program. So, by changing criminal offenses from, for example, ADW bat or ADW gun to felony assault, that would avoid both the MPD and the FBI from reporting that as a part one or a felony offense.”
Sounds questionable. Perhaps these crime stats shouldn't be taken at face value until this is sorted out, huh?
Oh, hellz, no, say the networks that have to beat Trump over the head. We're running with them.
“According to the Media Research Center (@TheMRC) and a study they did this week,” @RobFinnertyUSA highlighted on his Wednesday night @Newsmax show, “CNN and MSNBC cited those fake numbers 73 times over a 24 hour period, meaning millions of people were told a lie for an entire… pic.twitter.com/C5WneBBKLI
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) August 14, 2025
So is the AP in their 'fact checking.' Isn't this the cutest little caveat you've ever seen in your life?
... The city’s statistics have come into question, however, after authorities opened an investigation into allegations that officials altered some of the data to make it look better. But Mayor Muriel Bowser stands by the data and said Trump’s portrait of lawlessness is inaccurate.
“We are not experiencing a spike in crime,” Bowser said on MSNBC Sunday. “In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”
LOOKS GOOD TO US!
And then, awkwardly, here comes the Washington Free Beacon with a report today that, in a sane and rational world, would cut the legs right out from under their 'down 30% narrative' but won't.
A former D.C. cop sued the department in 2020, and the city has just 'quietly 'settled her lawsuit.
You'll never guess what she sued them for.
The District of Columbia has quietly settled a lawsuit from a sergeant who accused Metropolitan Police Department leaders of misclassifying offenses to deflate the district's crime statistics, court records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. Police brass repeatedly told officers to downgrade theft cases, knife attacks, and violent assaults to lesser offenses, according to internal MPD emails, depositions, and phone call transcripts the Free Beacon reviewed.
Former MPD sergeant Charlotte Djossou sued the department in 2020, alleging that police leadership punished her for speaking out against the scheme. Djossou, who joined the force after serving honorably in Iraq, accused MPD brass of attempting to "distort crime statistics" by "downgrading a number of felonies to misdemeanors, so that there will be 'fewer' felonies in the statistics." She also provided records showing that police leaders explicitly instructed their subordinates to underclassify certain instances of theft to keep them out of the crime stats the city reports to the public.
The lawsuit, as well as the city's decision to settle, calls into question the prevailing narrative presented in mainstream media outlets as President Donald Trump carries out a D.C. crime crackdown. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico have all cited data from the Metropolitan Police Department to contend that D.C. crime is low and Trump's crackdown is unnecessary. That coverage did not mention whistleblowers like Djossou, nor did it disclose that a D.C. police commander is currently on leave after the city's police union accused him of manipulating crime stats.
Oh. Hello.
It is the most amazing thing to read, absolutely stomach-churning, how these senior police officials would twist incidents to drop the classification for the sake of manipulating the crime statistics.
...Djossou reported one case in which a "female was cut (deep open flesh cut) on the side of her face with an unknown object, from her forehead to the bottom of her chin." While the responding officer had called in the crime as "Assault with a Dangerous Weapon" (ADW), the captain allegedly classified the offense as a "Sick person to the hospital."
Djossou called Conboy, the captain who ordered officers to use the TPWOR strategy, about another case on Oct. 24, 2019. In this instance, an on-duty watch officer had downgraded an ADW to a "misdemeanor Simple Assault."
"I feel like they're downgrading classifications," said Djossou, according to an MPD transcript of the call. "[The assailant] strangled [the victim], he ended up throwing her over the couch. She had scratches on her neck, her shirt was ripped, and then he threw a knife in her direction close to her head, she moved out of the way."
Conboy played down the crime, the transcript reads, saying it only "tangentially involved a knife" because the "knife never made contact with the complainant."
Djossou responded that the knife only missed the victim because she "moved out of the way," to which Conboy asked whether Djossou would classify a thrown shoe as an ADW and said he did not "see any issues with the current classification."
And most sincerely, God bless the courage of Sergeant Djossou. It would have been all too easy for them to arrange an on-the-job accident to befall her.
That same data-diddling Captain Conboy, who so outraged Sergeant Djoussou, seems to have gotten himself promoted for doing his massaging job really well.
...Conboy was appointed captain of the MPD's Research and Analytical Services Branch in 2021, where he was "responsible for overseeing the development of statistical reports, charts, and maps covering crime trends and patterns." He now serves as commander of the Joint Strategic and Tactical Analysis Command Center, which directs public crime alerts and assists federal agencies with intelligence gathering.
This whole numbers game has been rigged in D.C. for years. They dropped the lawsuit the day Trump announced the federal takeover, and settled up, probably terrified some housecleaning was coming alongside the federal troops.
What does that tell anyone with half a brain?
Why is everyone giving this woman a hard time for not knowing what “chain of command” means. It’s not like she’s DC Police Chief Pamela A. Smith.
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) August 12, 2025
Oh man, wait… she is DC Police Chief Pamela A. Smith
pic.twitter.com/hNaIRxo707
Okay, Scratch that. 'Half a brain' doesn't begin to describe D.C.'s police chief.
It certainly shouldn't tell you to keep using their statistics.
It might also tell you that, as crooked as that city is, the feds marching in didn't happen near soon enough.
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