A Washington, D.C. police sergeant accused his department of falsifying violent crime statistics in 2020 and was punished for her whistleblowing. Former Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) sergeant Charlotte Djossou claims that the police brass "repeatedly told officers to downgrade theft cases, knife attacks, and violent assaults to lesser offenses." The Washington Free Beacon confirmed this when the outlet reviewed internal "MPD emails, depositions, and phone call transcripts."
Djossou sued the Washington, D.C. police department, alleging that police leadership punished her for speaking out against the scheme. She also "accused MPD brass of trying to 'distort crime statistics' by 'downgrading a number of felonies to misdemeanors, so that there will be "fewer" felonies in the statistics.'"
On Aug. 5, the exact same day that Donald Trump threatened to take control of the D.C. police department, "a judge dismissed Ms. Djossou’s case at the request of both parties," reported the New York Sun.
The lawsuit, as well as the city's decision to settle, calls into question the prevailing narrative presented in mainstream media outlets as President Donald Trump carries out a D.C. crime crackdown. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico have all cited data from the Metropolitan Police Department to contend that D.C. crime is low and Trump's crackdown is unnecessary. That coverage did not mention whistleblowers like Djossou, nor did it disclose that a D.C. police commander is currently on leave after the city's police union accused him of manipulating crime stats.
Djossou took her complaint to MPD internal affairs, who conducted an investigation. The internal report, which was included in the Free Beacon story, corroborated most of Djossou's story and revealed how the MPD leadership covered the real crime stats.
The documents show that MPD Commander Randy Griffin, who commanded D.C's Fourth District in the northernmost part of the city, tasked one of his police captains, Franklin Porter, "with finding 'a solution for the theft problem, which was driving up the district's statistics' in April 2018."
Instead of classifying a crime as "theft," Porter classified them as "Taking Property Without Right" (TPWOR). TPWOR crimes were not tracked in the D.C. crime report.
TPWOR offenses grew by 500% after Porter's directive.
Captain Porter sent another email in Sept. 2019 "to the sergeants serving under him, ordering them not to classify crimes as 'felonies' if they fell under the categories of 'Assault With a Dangerous Weapon,' 'Robberies,' 'Burglary,' or 'Felony Assault.'" Instead, he told the sergeants to turn the matter over to their watch commander. While it's unclear how many of those potential felonies were downgraded, it makes a joke of the D.C. crime statistics being cited by Mayor Muriel Bowser and the mainstream press.
Sadly, D.C. is not the only big city that fudges crime stats.
The MPD is one of many police departments to be accused of misclassifying crimes in recent years. The Los Angeles Police Department in 2015 admitted to categorizing approximately 14,000 assaults as minor offenses between 2005 and 2012, decreasing the city's crime rate by 7 percent. The New York City Police Department acknowledged in 2012 that at least one precinct had systematically underreported crime and hundreds of retired officers said they knew of at least three instances in which the department had done so.
In April 2024, the New Orleans Police Department announced that it had underreported more than 400 rape cases and blamed technical issues in its record system.
In many cities, misrepresentation of statistics leads residents to believe decreases in crime occurred where none existed in reality. Columbus, Ohio, reported a drop in violent crime in 2013 and 2014, but in 2024, citizens learned that violent offenses had actually increased during that time.
As the Free Beacon points out, the facts of this lawsuit are never mentioned when the mainstream media is railing against Trump's takeover of the D.C. police department. It hardly matters. Even the fudged statistics reveal a city in crisis. The fact that the crime stats are coming down is immaterial to the notion that the media and Democrats continue to "define deviancy down." The Democrats and big city leaders want us to accept the murder, the mayhem, and the rest of violent crime because, after all, there are fewer violent crimes this year than last.
The crime rate going from "intolerable" to "unbearable" is no reason to celebrate or pat oneself on the back. It's time we made the unlivable situation in big cities unacceptable. If the mayors won't do anything about it, perhaps the federal government should.
