Multiple high-ranking D.C. police officials face termination or other potential disciplinary action, three officials say, creating a scramble as the department faces intense scrutiny from federal officials.
At least some of the proposed discipline is related to an internal affairs investigation into the alleged manipulation of crime data, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal process. The city has been investigating the matter, along with the Department of Justice and Republicans in Congress.
The officials accused of misconduct will have the opportunity to defend themselves against the allegations through the department’s disciplinary process, which can lead to arbitration and take years to complete in some cases.
The recommended terminations and other disciplinary actions, if enacted, portend a potentially sweeping shake-up among top department leadership. It will also cause an immediate staffing challenge as some officials are placed on administrative leave.
Attorney Pamela Keith, who represents one of the captains facing termination, said her client declined to comment on the allegations. But Keith said she thinks the investigation is sweeping up managers who did not intentionally try to downplay crime. Some are being accused of improperly changing crime reports when they did so only to correct misclassifications — a common practice in the department, she said.
Still, news of the potential discipline over crime statistics is likely to fuel additional GOP attacks on the District over this issue.
“We’re not stopping until the full truth is out,” House Oversight Republicans wrote in a social media post Monday, while demanding the police department “release EVERY document from their internal investigation into manipulated crime data.”
D.C. police spokesman Tom Lynch declined Monday to confirm the terminations or any details about them, saying the department cannot discuss personnel matters or internal investigations. Susana Castillo, spokeswoman for D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), also declined to comment.
The District has reported a decline in overall crime in recent years after a historic spike in 2023. But some in D.C. police circles have long complained that certain managers routinely reduced the severity of crime classifications to make their police districts appear safer or avoid criticism from top department brass.
President Donald Trump intensified public scrutiny of the D.C. police department last summer, claiming that crime was worse than city statistics showed to justify his unprecedented move to take temporary control of the local force. Trump in particular seized on reports that a D.C. police commander, Michael Pulliam, was being investigated for potentially changing crime classifications inappropriately. Pulliam has denied wrongdoing.
The Justice Department and congressional Republicans launched probes and dozens of D.C. officers voluntarily offered information to investigators, seeing an opportunity to voice long-standing concerns over the way their managers classified crimes, The Washington Post reported.
Both investigations resulted in reports that excoriated D.C. police leadership, but were thin on details about the manipulation of crime statistics and any possible impact on the public’s understanding of crime.
Instead, the reports focused on the leadership style of Pamela A. Smith, alleging that as police chief she created a “culture of fear” that incentivized officials to misclassify crimes to avoid her ire. The reports did not cite examples of Smith ordering staff to downplay crimes. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said that none of the conduct surfaced by the investigation merited criminal charges.
Smith vehemently denied allegations that she ordered any manipulation of statistics, and Bowser gave the chief praise for the sharp citywide reduction in crime reported over her tenure.
Bowser also requested that the city’s inspector general’s office investigate crime statistic concerns, seeking what she saw as a more impartial examination of the matter. The office launched that probe in January.
Smith stepped down in December and told Fox5-TV that the federal intervention in the city’s policing did not influence her decision.
Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), who chairs the House committee investigating D.C. police crime reporting, recently said the panel’s probe continues and requested additional documents and communications from the department.
In a letter to interim D.C. police chief Jeffery Carroll, Comer wrote that the committee had recently learned that the internal affairs investigation “has been completed and included substantiated claims against individuals in [D.C. police] leadership positions.”
According to D.C. police policy, supervisors are not permitted to make changes to crime classifications in other officers’ reports. Keith, the lawyer for a captain facing discipline, said that means that high-level officials may have been running afoul of department policy for correcting inaccurate classifications, even when well-intentioned.
“They’re not trying to manipulate anything – they’re simply trying to correct the report,” Keith said.
But Keith, who has represented whistleblowers who have questioned D.C. police crime data reporting in the past, said she does think, “others may have very much been trying to manipulate crime statistics for their own benefit, to make themselves more appealing for promotion or to be in favor with leadership.”
What the investigations will have to determine for the various managers, she said, is – “did they do something that was malicious and intentional and designed to obfuscate and mislead the public?”
Steve Thompson contributed to this report.
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