President Donald Trump said Monday that while Washington, D.C., is “getting better” each day following the federalization of the local police force and deploying the National Guard, the district’s “fake” crime statistics remain a problem.
“D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety,” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social. “This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!”
The White House initiated its crackdown on rampant crime and lawlessness in the district last week, which drew attention to the crime numbers Democratic leaders have repeatedly cited in their arguments against Trump’s intervention in local affairs.
While Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and other Democrats have noted that violent crime is at a 30-year low in the district, the numbers behind that talking point are misleading.
The Metropolitan Police Department’s crime reports are flawed because they don’t count unreported crimes, which is often a problem in urban areas. In fact, more than half of violent crimes resulting in injury go unreported in the United States, according to a 2020 study citing the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey. Furthermore, in 2022, the DOJ’s crime survey found that only 41.5% of violent crimes and 31.8% of household property crimes were reported to law enforcement.
The “violent crime” category in MPD’s database is also skewed. It only includes homicide, sex abuse crimes, assault with a dangerous weapon, and robbery. Meanwhile, aggravated assault and felony assault without a weapon are left out entirely, even though they result in bodily injury.
The DC Police Union, which represents more than 3,000 officers in the district, also alleged that there’s a problem with police officers manipulating crime data.
Police Commander Michael Pulliam was placed on paid administrative leave in May over the allegations, but the union argued that the falsification of crime data permeates the entire department.
“When our members respond to the scene of a felony offense where there is a victim reporting that a felony occurred, inevitably there will be a lieutenant or a captain that will show up on that scene and direct those members to take a report for a lesser offense,” Gregg Pemberton, the union’s chairman, told NBC4 Washington last month.
“So instead of taking a report for a shooting or a stabbing or a carjacking, they will order that officer to take a report for a theft or an injured person to the hospital or a felony assault, which is not the same type of classification,” he explained.
Taking these factors into account, the crime statistics frequently quoted by Democrats are not as accurate as they’d like to believe, and don’t translate to a safe city.
According to data from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Washington, D.C., had the fourth-highest homicide rate in 2024 and 2023 behind St. Louis, New Orleans, and Detroit. Although the district has seen some progress in reducing crime, one neighborhood in particular was ranked above Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in the number of homicides per capita so far this year.
Ward 8, which covers Anacostia and a portion of Navy Yard, has an estimated homicide count of 71.9 per 100,000 people. The district neighborhood with the second-highest murder rate, Ward 7, has an estimated homicide count of 41.4 per 100,000 people.
THIS DC NEIGHBORHOOD IS AS DANGEROUS AS JUAREZ. OTHERS AREN’T MUCH BETTER
Despite Democrats’ outrage, Trump has proceeded with his plan to temporarily federalize the MPD to drastically reduce crime and perhaps address the department’s falsification of crime data. The executive action followed the high-profile murders of a Capitol Hill intern in June and two Israeli Embassy staffers in May.
“Until 4 days ago, Washington, D.C., was the most unsafe ‘city’ in the United States, and perhaps the World,” Trump wrote Monday. “Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to D.C. again, and soon, the beautification will begin!”
