The crime statistics controversy in Washington, D.C., has taken a new turn after the city quietly settled a lawsuit from former Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) sergeant Charlotte Djossou. Djossou accused MPD leaders of deliberately downgrading felonies—such as knife attacks, robberies, and assaults—to misdemeanors to make the district’s crime rate appear lower.
Court records show that MPD commanders instructed officers to use lesser classifications like “Taking Property Without Right” (TPWOR) instead of theft or shoplifting, since TPWOR reports are excluded from the city’s public crime statistics. “Managers at the district routinely changed felony classifications to misdemeanors,” Sergeant Michelle Starr confirmed in an investigative interview, noting that TPWOR reports skyrocketed 500 percent after the directive.
Djossou’s lawsuit included records of violent crimes being downgraded, including one case where a woman suffered a “deep open flesh cut” from forehead to chin but the offense was recorded as “Sick person to the hospital.” In another case, she reported a suspect who “strangled [the victim]… threw her over the couch… and then he threw a knife in her direction close to her head,” only for the incident to be classified as a misdemeanor assault.
The case was dismissed on Aug. 5 after both parties announced they had reached a settlement.
