For years, some in D.C. police circles have complained that supervisors routinely altered crime classifications to make their districts appear safer or to avoid criticism from department leadership. These long-standing concerns reentered public view last year after a police commander was placed on administrative leave amid an internal inquiry into whether he manipulated crime data.
Then, the police union went public with allegations that managers were routinely under-classifying crimes, and President Donald Trump weighed in on the issue after temporarily seizing control of the department in August.
Trump justified his declaration of a local emergency in part by casting doubt on statistics showing violent crime in D.C. dropped to historically low levels after a spike in 2023.
By last fall, dozens of officers were voluntarily feeding information to the Justice Department after the agency and Republicans in Congress launched investigations. In one case, officers compiled a list of more than 150 instances since March 2024 in which they alleged offenses in a Southeast Washington police district were inappropriately classified to downplay the seriousness of the crimes.
Here is what we know about those investigations and what has happened since they began.
What did the federal investigations allege?
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee issued an interim report accusing then-Police Chief Pamela A. Smith of creating “an ecosystem of fear, retaliation, and toxicity” in which low crime statistics were prized above all else and were to be achieved “by any means necessary” under a system in which all crime classifications became subject to her review. A leaked draft Justice Department report described a “coercive culture of fear” under Smith’s leadership.
Commanders testified they faced pressure to reclassify crimes. One described being instructed by an executive assistant chief to reclassify an assault with a dangerous weapon to an endangerment with a firearm — a shift from a publicly reported crime to one that is not. The commander described the push as “inappropriate.” Another testified about pressure to downgrade burglaries to unlawful entry.
Smith has vehemently denied ordering or encouraging any manipulation of crime statistics. “Never will I ever compromise my integrity for a few crime numbers,” she said to applause during a ceremony marking her departure late last year.
Democrats on the Oversight Committee released their own report using the same commander interviews but reaching starkly different conclusions. They highlighted testimony from officials who said they had not faced pressure to change crime classifications and were encouraged to report numbers accurately. The commanders also “uniformly” agreed that crime had decreased significantly over the past two years, according to the Democrats’ report.
What did the city find?
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) requested that the city’s inspector general investigate concerns about the crime statistics, seeking what she viewed as a more impartial examination of the matter. That probe launched in January. The police department’s internal affairs division conducted its own investigation.
Last week, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), chair of the Oversight Committee, wrote in a letter to interim police chief Jeffery Carroll that the committee had learned that the internal affairs investigation “has been completed and included substantiated claims against individuals in [D.C. police] leadership positions.”
Multiple high-ranking police officials face termination or other disciplinary action, with at least some of it tied to the internal affairs findings on alleged crime data manipulation, according to officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal process. A lawyer representing a captain facing termination argues that the investigation is sweeping up managers who corrected misclassifications with good intentions, rather than those who deliberately tried to downplay crime.
The proposed disciplinary actions portend a potentially major shake-up at the top and will create immediate staffing challenges as officials are placed on administrative leave.
What happens next?
Multiple investigations remain active. The Oversight Committee continues its probe, with Comer requesting additional documents and communications from the department. “We’re not stopping until the full truth is out,” Republicans on the panel wrote Monday in a social media post, demanding that the police department “release EVERY document from their internal investigation into manipulated crime data.”
The city inspector general’s investigation is also ongoing. The officials accused in the internal police investigation will have the opportunity to defend themselves through the department’s disciplinary process, which can lead to arbitration and take years to complete.
The political stakes are high. Republicans have used the allegations to justify Trump’s declaration of a “crime emergency” in D.C., which, while expired, prompted the continued presence of National Guard troops and immigration agents in the city. Democrats said in their report that “Oversight Republicans’ failed investigation was an assault on reality at the behest of an unstable President angry at a police department for doing its job.”
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