This is fraud. This might even be a "conspiracy to defraud the American people," a charge used to jail J6 protesters for "parading."
Lock. Them. Up.
And make them rat on the higher-level Democrats who told them to fake the stats.
Just weeks before President Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the Washington, D.C. police, the Metropolitan Police Department quietly settled a retaliation lawsuit from a whistleblower who alleged the crime statistics were manipulated.
The lawsuit, which has been part of public court records for years, has garnered renewed attention as part of a growing body of evidence that the city of Washington, D.C. may have a more widespread crime problem than official statistics would suggest.
The president's political opponents and city leadership cited those official numbers, which show an approximately 30% decline in violent crime since 2023, as evidence that the federal takeover was unnecessary. However, both the whistleblower lawsuit and the ongoing disciplinary proceedings of a suspended captain accused of manipulating statistics have called those numbers into question.
President Trump accused the city of providing false crime statistics to improve its image and to give a "false illusion of safety." He also seemed to confirm that the Metropolitan Police Department and city government will be investigated over the allegations.
"D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.
Whistleblower filed suit
...
Sergeant Charlotte Djossou, a 20-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, filed a lawsuit against the department and the city in 2020, alleging she was subject to retaliation from leadership after blowing the whistle on several department policies.
According to her official complaint, the army veteran and police sergeant filed reports for years about practices at the department from 2014 to the time of her lawsuit, including allegations of improper--and possibly unconstitutional--searches, racial targeting, and improper reclassification of crimes to improve performance metrics.
Djossou asserted that senior officers often manipulated crime statistics in their own districts because improving performance on the metrics is directly linked to promotion potential and suggested the issue was widespread in the department.
"MPD has a long history of trying to distort crime statistics in Washington, D.C., including downgrading felonies to misdemeanors," Sergeant Djossou, claimed in her October 2020 complaint.
Responding to directives from senior leadership "to show the largest reduction in crime statistics," Djossou says "MPD improperly reduced crime statistics by downgrading a number of felonies to misdemeanors, so that there will be "fewer" felonies in the statistics."
This happened for one reason, the sergeant claimed. "The promotions of MPD captains and commanders are tied to the size of the reduction in crime statistics in their districts."
In mid-2019, Sergeant Djossou first observed MPD officers classifying felony thefts as misdemeanors. Despite express directives from higher authorities earlier that year that any theft involving stolen goods valued more than $25 should be classified as felonies, Djossou said captains and officers downgraded felony thefts that could not be solved as misdemeanors.
"The result is that felony thefts were now being recorded as misdemeanors, solely because the theft could not be solved, regardless of the dollar value of what was stolen," Djossou's lawsuit reads.
Djossou brought her observations to a commander, which resulted in the reversal of over 100 misclassifications back to felonies. The sergeant alleges that she faced retaliation for her disclosures soon after by means of a poor performance evaluation, the court documents show.
CNN's communist bag-lady Dana Bash is attempting to make some kind of "Trump just wants to punish black and brown people in DC" argument by pointing out that lots of (Democrat-controlled) cities around the country have a crime problem.
Okay, we'll do them next. Are you happy, Dana?