by Alana Goodman at The Washington Free Beacon
DC Fraternal Order of Police chairman Gregg Pemberton said in July that Metropolitan Police Department leaders pressure officers to falsify data and artificially deflate crime statistics
After President Donald Trump announced a federal crackdown on lawlessness in Washington, D.C., mainstream media outlets and Democratic politicians claimed violent crime in the nation’s capital has “fallen sharply” and has reached a “30-year low.” Their claims, though, rest on questionable police data that local leaders are accused of falsifying to play down the city’s violent crime problem. The Metropolitan Police Department recently suspended a commander for allegedly manipulating that data, a fact the mainstream reports excluded.
Politico reported Monday that “crime in Washington hit a 30-year low last year” despite the president “declaring a public safety emergency in the District” and attempting to “cast the city as dangerous.” NPR’s story stated Trump ordered the federal intervention “despite the fact that violent crime plunged to a 30-year low last year, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice.” The Guardian similarly claimed violent crime in D.C. “has fallen sharply since 2023” and reached a “30-year low on the day Trump took office” in January.
The hometown Washington Post said that Trump has tried to “cast the capital as overrun with violent youngsters,” arguing instead that crime data “paint a contrasting picture.”
“Violent crime in D.C. has been on the decline since 2023, when a generational spike in killings rendered the nation’s capital one of America’s deadliest cities,” the Post wrote.
Those publications based their stories on data collected by the MPD, which the Biden administration touted just before leaving office.
“Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia…
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