It wasn’t long before President Trump took over the police department in Washington, D.C., and sent in the National Guard that the left was criticizing it as unnecessary.
“While federal data shows violent crime in D.C. reached a 30-year low before Trump took office, the rhetoric from the White House has portrayed D.C. as some kind of lawless hellscape,” Ja’han Jones wrote at MSNBC. (RELATED: DC May Be More Receptive to a Trump Takeover Than Many Assume)
To maintain that crime in Washington is at its lowest since the mid-1990s, one must believe violent crime is dropping at rates not seen in the last three decades…
Those who think D.C. is a lawless hellscape are much less credulous than those who think D.C. crime is at a 30-year low. To maintain that crime in Washington is at its lowest since the mid-1990s, one must believe violent crime is dropping at rates not seen in the last three decades, and it is doing so while the number of police on the streets and the number of arrests are falling.
A look at D.C. crime data shows something is not right in the recent numbers the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department is reporting. The bulk of the decline in crime in the last two years occurred in violent crime. As the table here shows, 2024 is an outlier. In the last 30 years, total violent crime never came close to dropping 35 percent in one year. Each type of violent crime — assault with a dangerous weapon, homicide, robbery, and sex abuse — fell more than 25 percent in 2024. That is unprecedented. If the trends in 2025 hold, each category will see a second consecutive year of double-digit decline, with sex abuse falling a whopping 50 percent. That is also unprecedented.
What accounts for this astounding drop in violent crime? The MPD did not respond to a request for comment.
Perhaps it is due to more police on the streets? No. The police force shrank from 3,332 in 2023 to 3,181 through August of this year. Nor is the drop the result of more arrests. Arrests, both adult and juvenile, fell by 712 from 2023 to 2024.
The most likely explanation is that the MPD manipulates the data. That, according to D.C. Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton, is what has yielded lower crime rates in the nation’s capital.
“When our members respond to the scene of a felony offense … 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,” Pemberton recently told NBC4 Washington. “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.”
Felony assault is particularly useful if one wants to juke the statistics. Felony assault does not show up in D.C. crime data, nor is it required to be reported to the FBI. And, assault with a dangerous weapon, robbery, and sex abuse can all be reclassified as felonious assault.
Pemberton made these remarks in response to the news that the Commander of the 3rd District, Michael Pulliam, had been placed on paid administrative leave in May. He is under investigation for changing crime statistics for the 3rd District. Pulliam claims this is retaliation for an equal employment opportunity complaint he filed against Executive Assistant Chief of Police Andre Wright.
Pulliam’s case is not the first. In 2020, Sergeant Charlotte Djossou sued the department for punishing her after she accused the top brass of manipulating crime data. The city recently settled the case.
Pemberton has welcomed Trump’s decision to take over the MPD and send in the National Guard, as well he should. The city council and the mayor have proven, to put it generously, ineffective.
In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, the city council cut the police budget by 15 percent in May 2020. While Mayor Bowser opposed it, she didn’t fight it. That sent a signal to D.C. police that city hall didn’t value them. The police force shrank from 3,784 to 3,525 by April 2022. In that month, Mayor Bowser announced her plan to put the MPD on a path to 4,000 officers. Since then, the force has shrunk by another 344 officers.
It is time to let Trump have a try. When it comes to crime, the current D.C. leadership is pitiful, something that an honest collection of the data would show.
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