Trump Opens DOJ Investigation Because Crime Rates In Washington D.C. Aren’t High Enough

Overhype

from the this-is-your-federal-government-on-stupid-[sizzling-noises] dept

Here’s how things are going in Washington D.C. ever since some former DOGE employee known as “Big Balls” got his ass handed to him by a couple of teenagers during an alleged failed carjacking:

Now that one of DOGE’s dipshits was almost carjacked, Trump thinks it’s time to federalize the policing of Washington, DC. Utilizing the same racist paranoia that fueled his baseless full-page accusations against the Central Park Five back in the 1990s, Trump is pretending DC is such a criminal hellhole, it can only be handled by the imposition of federal force — something that more than likely will involve the National Guard and other war fighters.

Forget “more than likely.” It’s an actual thing in D.C.:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized National Guard troops deployed to Washington to bring their weapons with them on their mission. But it was not clear whether the troops would be armed as they walked through the city, or simply store their weapons in their vehicles, which would not be a significant change over their current status.

Trump’s claims about D.C. being a crime-ridden hellhole are undercut by stats released by none other than his own FBI. According to those numbers, the violent crime rate in D.C. has continued to plummet to historical lows, following an abnormal spike provoked by an abnormal situation: a worldwide pandemic Trump handled no better than he’s handling this current crime “crisis.”

Here’s what’s happening now, since the crime rates won’t align themselves with Trump’s bullshit narrative. Trump is sending in the DOJ to “investigate” the DC police for allegedly fudging the crime numbers.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Washington, D.C., police manipulated data to make crime rates appear lower, escalating tensions between the Trump administration and local officials who have repeatedly cited drops in violent crime to protest the need for a federal takeover of law enforcement.

[…]

“D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety,” President Donald Trump wrote on social media Monday night, confirming the existence of the probe.

It’s unclear what exactly Trump is referring to in his social media posts because… well… it’s usually up to everyone else to draw a line from his randomly capitalized Truth Social posts to anything that might be conceivably actionable and/or somewhat supported by actual facts.

In this case, it appears to be an ongoing investigation into claims that some crime reports may have been altered to falsely present a lower crime rate in the D.C. area. This was reported last month by NBC, which covered an investigation already in progress that was being performed by entities without an ulterior martial law motive.

A D.C. police commander is under investigation for allegedly making changes to crime statistics in his district.

The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Michael Pulliam was placed on paid administrative leave in mid-May. That happened just a week after Pulliam filed an equal employment opportunity complaint against an assistant chief and the police union accused the department of deliberately falsifying crime data, according to three law enforcement sources familiar with the complaint.

Not great, if true. But this isn’t an anomaly. Crime rates are manipulated all the time. The question to ask is why they were manipulated. If it’s time for budgets to be passed, cop shops may juice the numbers to make it appear as those they need more funding. If top officials are up for re-appointment or facing an election run, they may do what’s alleged here: turn alleged felonies into misdemeanors and misdemeanors into nothing.

The police union claims it’s the latter:

“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,” Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Gregg Pemberton said. “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.”

The union feels this is a slam-dunk statement. But who’s being dunked on? To follow this argument to its logical conclusion, the union is arguing that D.C. PD officers are terrible at their jobs and the only reason the public doesn’t know this is because someone been altering crime stats to make officers look better at deterring crime than they actually are.

To sum up, this is everything that’s given the president the excuse he needs to wield the DOJ vindictively against another political opponent — one that’s embodied by Trump’s villain du jour: the entire District of Columbia.

• Cop official: fudge the numbers to make the PD look better
• Union leader: no, my guys are terrible at preventing/investigating crime. it’s as bad as it ever was.
• Trump: who cares, this is just performance
• DOJ: we’re just hand puppets

Even if the numbers were manipulated, a competent president and a DOJ headed by people who swore to serve the country, rather than any particular president, would have waited to see if these allegations of crime rate manipulation were substantiated. What any normal president wouldn’t do is take control of local policing and add armed soldiers to the mix. So whatever’s being claimed here doesn’t really matter. Trump did it because he wanted to, not because he actually had a justifiable reason to do it.

There’s no reason to believe DC crime rates have been substantially fudged. It’s not an outlier in the midst of nationwide violent crime spikes. It’s just more of the same thing that’s been observed in pretty much every city in the nation, including those Trump continues to claim are so ridden with violent crime he has no choice but to send in the troops.

Crime statistics reported by the D.C. police were generally in line with trends seen nationally. The District’s violent crimes — which include homicide, aggravated assault, rape and robbery — fell 10 percent from 2023 to 2024. In that same time, FBI data showed, those crimes across the country decreased 13 percent.

This year, cities including Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles have seen steep declines in reported incidents. Homicides in Philadelphia, for example, are down 16 percent, while homicides in Atlanta are down 25 percent, police department data shows.

But this investigation will become part of the pattern and practice of this administration filled with aspiring fascists. Trump has already declared that other major cities (but only those headed by “liberal” mayors) are next in line for this treatment. The reality is that of the 23 cities with the biggest increase in homicides, a third of those are located in “red” states.

But the administration hasn’t stated any desire to flood the streets of those cities with federal officers and National Guard troops, which means all of this is nothing more than politically motivated vindictiveness. And since that’s all it is, it really doesn’t matter whether or not some crime stats were altered to show lower crime rates. Trump would have done this anyway. All he wants now is something that might plausibly justify actions he’s already put in motion.

Filed Under: crime, crime stats, doj, donald trump, fbi, washington dc