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The top police official in Washington, D.C., pressured commanders to lower classifications of crime and retaliated against those who reported spikes, creating a widespread culture of fear and distorted public data, according to a new congressional report.
An interim report from the House Oversight Committee released on Sunday claims that outgoing Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Pamela Smith, who announced her resignation on Dec. 8, oversaw an unprecedented system of intervention in crime reporting.
The Republican-led committee alleges that Smith, who is expected to remain in the position through the end of the year, pressured commanders on numerous occasions, and at times instructed them to downgrade offenses and avoid classifications that would appear on the city’s Daily Crime Report.
“By pressuring her command staff to alter classifications for the sole purpose of artificially reducing crime numbers reported out to the public, Chief Smith incentivized the manipulation of crime numbers, which do not adequately account for the crime taking place in D.C.,” the report reads in part.
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The findings, based on eight transcribed interviews with MPD district commanders, describe a toxic management environment in which accuracy was sacrificed for optics, and career officials faced public humiliation or demotion for presenting Smith with unfavorable crime statistics.
MPD did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment about the report.
“Briefings with Chief Smith involved public chastisement to the point commanders expressed feeling like they were being treated as if they had committed the crimes themselves,” the report stated.
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“On two occasions I had… robbery sprees, and I think I had, like, 13 robberies in over a night period, a day period,” said one MPD commander who is identified only as “Commander E” in the report. “And, yeah, I was – usually you have, there’s – an order of how you brief out, but at the very beginning of the crime briefing, the chief said, ‘I need to see [Commander E] up front to brief first.’ So I got up there and I was basically admonished. I was like, ‘How could I let these robberies happen?’ It was embarrassing, but it happened. And then it stemmed other meetings after that to sit down and kind of drill down to what’s happening. I did feel like I did the robberies after I left. I literally was, like, I swear I did not commit them.”
The committee’s investigation unfolded against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s federal crime crackdown in the nation’s capital. In August, Trump issued an executive order to address the “epidemic of crime” in the district and deployed federal law enforcement personnel, including the National Guard.
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Several commanders told the committee the surge had been helpful in supplementing the department’s resources.
Mayor Muriel Bowser noted last week that D.C. homicides are down 30% this year.
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Bowser told Fox News Digital in a statement: “The men and women of the Metropolitan Police Department run towards danger every day to reduce homicides, carjackings, armed robberies, sexual assaults, and more. The precipitous decline in crime in our city is attributable to their hard work and dedication and Chief Smith’s leadership.”
“I thank Chief Smith for her commitment to the safety of DC residents and for holding the Metropolitan Police Department to an exacting standard, and I expect no less from our next Chief of Police,” she added.
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