The Office of the D.C. Inspector General has opened its own probe into allegations that the Metropolitan Police Department has been fudging its crime statistics, marking yet another investigation into an issue that helped justify President Trump’s crime crackdown in the District.
D.C. Inspector General Daniel Lucas sent a letter Monday to Interim Police Chief Jeffrey Carroll acknowledging the investigation and its intent to “assess the design, implementation, and operation of MPD’s internal control system for collecting, classifying, and reporting crime data and statistics.”
Accusations that MPD had manipulated its crime data to make the city appear safer than it is have become a joint focus of the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Last month, the GOP-led House Oversight Committee published a report saying that former police Chief Pamela A. Smith had bullied her staff into lowering crime numbers so that she could give Washingtonians “the perception of low crime in the District.”
Ms. Smith did that by having MPD’s seven district commanders downgrade key offenses to lesser crimes that were not shared in daily public updates, according to the report.
Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican and committee chairman, called on the former chief to resign immediately after the investigation and said she “coerced staff to report artificially low crime data and cultivated a culture of fear to achieve her agenda.”
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said last week that some aggravated assault or endangerment with a firearm charges brought to her office qualified for the more serious offense of assault with a deadly weapon. She said her office subsequently upgraded those charges.
Despite the committee’s findings, neither Ms. Pirro nor House investigators said there was criminal wrongdoing in the alleged crime data manipulation.
Ms. Smith, who left the department in late December, used part of her farewell speech to say “F you” to her critics.
“Let’s be really clear about one thing: Never would I, never will I ever compromise my integrity for a few crime numbers,” Ms. Smith said Dec. 19.
Mr. Trump also cited the ongoing investigation into police Cmdr. Michael Pulliam as evidence that the District was more lawless than it seemed during his summer crime-fighting operation.
The operation saw more than 2,000 National Guard troops and droves of federal agents surge into the District. Crime has taken a sharp dive since the mission began, but D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other Democratic city leaders argued that violent crime was already at a 30-year low before Mr. Trump’s directive.
Cmdr. Pulliam has been suspended as MPD reviews allegations that he was artificially lowering crime numbers.
At his introductory press conference, Chief Carroll said that police are looking into creating a “dedicated auditing team” to make sure reports are appropriately classified.
