Crime data manipulation allegations are casting doubt on claims that violent crime in Washington, D.C., is at a 30-year low. While official numbers show a 27% drop in “assault with a dangerous weapon” in 2024 and a further 20% drop in 2025, whistleblowers and union leaders say the truth may be very different. In July, Police Union head Gregg Pemberton accused commanders of instructing officers to “take a report for a lesser offense” to artificially lower crime statistics.
Commander Michael Pulliam is under investigation for allegedly altering crime classifications. Similar accusations surfaced in 2019, when two D.C. police officers testified that violent attacks—like a slashing outside a liquor store and a knife-to-neck assault—were downgraded to “simple assault,” a misdemeanor the department does not count as violent crime. Neither case was prosecuted.
Nationally, this problem is not unique to D.C. The Los Angeles Police Department admitted in 2015 to misclassifying 14,000 serious assaults as minor offenses. The New York City Police Department acknowledged in 2012 that at least one precinct systematically underreported crime. In 2024, New Orleans police admitted underreporting over 400 rape cases.
Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund policy director Sean Kennedy explained why these patterns persist: “Everybody up the chain wins when crime goes down on paper, regardless of whether it goes down in reality.” His words strike at the heart of the debate over public safety in the nation’s capital and call into question the official narrative used to criticize President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime.
