DC Police Chief Pamela Smith
The House Oversight Committee released a report on Sunday, detailing the committee’s investigation into DC Police Chief Pamela Smith’s manipulation of crime data.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer called for Pamela Smith to resign immediately in a statement, saying,
“Every single person who lives, works, or visits the District of Columbia deserves a safe city, yet it’s now clear the American people were deliberately kept in the dark about the true crime rates in our nation’s capital. Testimony from experienced and courageous MPD commanders has exposed the truth: Chief Pamela Smith coerced staff to report artificially low crime data and cultivated a culture of fear to achieve her agenda. Chief Smith’s decision to mislead the public by manipulating crime statistics is dangerous and undermines trust in both local leadership and law enforcement. Her planned resignation at the end of the month should not be seen as a voluntary choice, but as an inevitable consequence that should have occurred much earlier. Chief Smith should resign today. The House Oversight Committee is delivering on its responsibility to conduct robust oversight over D.C. and will continue its work to ensure crime data is accurately reported to the public.”
Smith had already announced plans to retire on December 31 just last week ahead of the release of this bombshell report.
The report, titled “Leadership Breakdown: How D.C.’s Police Chief Undermined Crime Data Accuracy,” follows a months-long investigation into whistleblower allegations that DC Police Chief Pamela Smith was intentionally fudging the crime statistics to make DC appear to have lowered homicide, burglary, carjacking, and other crime rates.
The report “reveals that Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Pamela A. Smith pressured and at times directed commanders to manipulate crime data in order to maintain the appearance of low crime in the nation’s capital,” according to a House Oversight Committee Press Release.
“The testimony from the commanders also describes an environment under Chief Smith marked by fear, intimidation, threats, and retaliation—conditions that contributed directly to declining morale and the loss of experienced officers and commanders.”
The committee conducted eight transcribed interviews with Metropolitan Police Department commanders, including suspended DC Police Commander Michael Pulliam, who was placed on paid leave in May due to accusations of manipulating crime data.
One commander described the pressure to make crime statistics appear lower as “extreme,” adding, “there’s always been pressure to keep crime down, but the focus on statistics… has come in with this current administration or regime, and you know, that has manifested publicly.” The same commander further explained how he was ordered to reduce an assault with a dangerous weapon crime to an endangerment with a firearm offense. The discussions surrounding crime classifications at the scene are “new to this chief and these executives,” the commander said. “This is never something that’s occurred before in our agency.”
“When I first took over the district, I would see a call come in for a burglary and then I would look on my watch commander report, and I would see that it was classified as an unlawful entry and a theft. It piqued my interest. I’d go read the report, and it would read like a burglary. It would say so and so came home after a day out and found their door open and their TV missing from their wall. That’s the elements of a burglary,” another commander testified. “Is it also an unlawful entry and a theft? Technically. But the proper charge would be burglary, but unlawful entry doesn’t hit the DCR status of burglary. So maybe my burglaries are down now even though I had a ton of unlawful entries.”
Commanders further revealed that they were punished or humiliated for not reporting low crime statistics, and they were “required to prepare for and attend mandatory crime briefings where they were scrutinized, both in person twice weekly and via video calls three additional times per week, in front of all their colleagues, for high crime numbers,” according to the report. But “presenting Chief Smith with spikes in publicly reported crimes would often lead to individual meetings in which commanders or assistant chiefs were again berated and pressured by Chief Smith and her command staff to improve their crime numbers”
One commander described the briefings as “really an atonement for our sins.”
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This comes after the Department of Justice announced in August that it was investigating allegations that crime reporting data from the Metropolitan Police Department was altered through underreporting of crimes.
Democrats and the leftwing city leaders repeatedly pointed to DC’s flawed crime statistics as talking points against Trump’s actions to declare a “public safety emergency” in the nation’s capital, federalize the DC police force, and authorize the use of National Guard troops to tackle the rampant crime, homelessness, and illegal immigration crises in August.
However, MPD district commanders confirmed that the surge in federal resources to Washington, DC, was effective.
“I’m sleeping a lot more and I’m getting a little bit more downtime, which I encourage, if anybody has any more Federal partners to bring to us, just tell them to go to [Commander E’s district]. I would be happy to take on any more resources that I possibly could get,” one commander said in his transcribed interview. Another told the committee, “[S]ince the Federal surge, and we have the Federal partners…they’ve been a force multiplier.”
A third said, “I would be lying if I said it didn’t. It did. It really helped.”
The key findings from the House Oversight Committee’s interim report are as follows:
Chief Smith’s Pressure Campaign Against Staff Led to Inaccurate Crime Data: Testimony revealed that Chief Smith prioritized lowering publicly reported crime numbers over reducing actual crime, placing intense pressure on district commanders to produce low crime statistics by any means necessary. Commanders also testified that Chief Smith pushed for more frequent use of lesser, intermediate charges—which are not publicly reported—and required certain crimes to be reviewed by her office, actions that together amounted to manipulating crime data to present the illusion of lower crime in the District.
MPD Commanders Confirm President Trump’s Federal Law Enforcement Surge in D.C. is Effective: On August 14, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14333, Declaring a Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia. The effects were twofold: first, the MPD was placed under the control of the U.S. Attorney General, and second, President Trump deployed D.C. National Guard to supplement the MPD’s efforts to fight crime. MPD Commanders testified that President Trump’s efforts have been effective.
Chief Smith Punished and Removed Officers for Reporting Accurate Crime Numbers and Fostered a Toxic Culture: Commanders described a culture of fear and stated that Chief Smith propagated an ecosystem of retaliation and toxicity. Testimony reveals commanders were berated for reporting rising crime and pressured, both in meetings and in separate individual sessions, to lower reported crime figures. Commanders also testified that Chief Smith engaged in retribution in the form of retaliatory transfers and demotions against various MPD officials.
D.C. Crime Statistics are Still at Risk of Manipulation: Crime classifications—which affect reported MPD crime data—have been and are still at risk of being artificially reduced to manipulate crime statistics at the expense of public safety even after Chief Smith’s resignation.
Appointing a New MPD Chief of Police: The Committee recommends thatD.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser appoint a new Chief of Police to the MPD who will address the ongoing concerns of crime statistics manipulations and alleviate the retaliatory pressures and threats faced by MPD personnel.
Read the full report here.
The post JUST IN: Bombshell House Oversight Report Accuses DC Police Chief of Rigging Crime Data – “Smith Coerced Staff to Report Artificially Low Crime Data and Cultivated a Culture of Fear to Achieve her Agenda” (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.