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The highest police official in Washington, D.C., pressured commanders to decrease classifications of crime and retaliated towards those that reported spikes, making a widespread tradition of concern and distorted public information, in accordance with a brand new congressional report.
An interim report from the Home Oversight Committee launched on Sunday claims that outgoing Metropolitan Police Division (MPD) Chief Pamela Smith, who introduced her resignation on Dec. 8, oversaw an unprecedented system of intervention in crime reporting.
The Republican-led committee alleges that Smith, who is predicted to stay within the place by means of the tip of the 12 months, pressured commanders on quite a few events, and at instances instructed them to downgrade offenses and keep away from classifications that would seem on the town’s Every day Crime Report.
“By pressuring her command employees to change classifications for the only goal of artificially lowering crime numbers reported out to the general public, Chief Smith incentivized the manipulation of crime numbers, which don’t adequately account for the crime going down in D.C.,” the report reads partially.
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Members of the FBI and Metropolitan Police Division conduct a site visitors cease close to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 14, 2025. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photographs)
The findings, primarily based on eight transcribed interviews with MPD district commanders, describe a poisonous administration setting by which accuracy was sacrificed for optics, and profession officers confronted public humiliation or demotion for presenting Smith with unfavorable crime statistics.
MPD didn’t instantly reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark in regards to the report.
“Briefings with Chief Smith concerned public chastisement to the purpose commanders expressed feeling like they have been being handled as if that they had dedicated the crimes themselves,” the report acknowledged.
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FBI and Border Patrol officers arrest a person alongside the U Road hall on Aug. 10, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Leyden/Getty Photographs)
“On two events I had… theft sprees, and I feel I had, like, 13 robberies in over an evening interval, a day interval,” mentioned one MPD commander who’s recognized solely as “Commander E” within the report. “And, yeah, I used to be – often you will have, there’s – an order of the way you transient out, however on the very starting of the crime briefing, the chief mentioned, ‘I have to see [Commander E] up entrance to transient first.’ So I received up there and I used to be mainly admonished. I used to be like, ‘How might I let these robberies occur?’ It was embarrassing, nevertheless it occurred. After which it stemmed different conferences after that to sit down down and sort of drill right down to what’s occurring. I did really feel like I did the robberies after I left. I actually was, like, I swear I didn’t commit them.”
The committee’s investigation unfolded towards the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s federal crime crackdown within the nation’s capital. In August, Trump issued an government order to handle the “epidemic of crime” within the district and deployed federal regulation enforcement personnel, together with the Nationwide Guard.
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A number of commanders instructed the committee the surge had been useful in supplementing the division’s sources.
Nationwide Guard members patrol the Nationwide Mall in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2025. (Andrew Leyden/Getty)
Mayor Muriel Bowser famous final week that D.C. homicides are down 30% this 12 months.
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Bowser instructed Fox Information Digital in an announcement: “The women and men of the Metropolitan Police Division run in direction of hazard day-after-day to scale back homicides, carjackings, armed robberies, sexual assaults, and extra. The precipitous decline in crime in our metropolis is attributable to their laborious work and dedication and Chief Smith’s management.”
“I thank Chief Smith for her dedication to the protection of DC residents and for holding the Metropolitan Police Division to an exacting customary, and I anticipate no much less from our subsequent Chief of Police,” she added.
