Federal prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into allegations that Washington DC police systematically manipulated crime statistics to make the city appear safer than it actually is.
The probe, anonymous sources tell the Washington Post, NBC News and Fox News, being conducted by the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia under Jeanine Pirro, is the latest escalation between the Trump administration and DC officials over federal control of local policing.
The justice department did not respond to a request for comment on the investigation.
Trump somewhat confirmed the investigation on Monday, writing on social media that DC provided “fake crime numbers” to create a “false illusion of safety” and officials were “under serious investigation”.
The federal investigation reportedly started after Cmdr Michael Pulliam was suspended in May by the Metropolitan police department for allegedly altering crime data. The local NBC station reported last month that Pulliam, the former commander of Washington DC’s 3rd district that patrols the Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights neighborhoods, faced accusations from the police union of falsifying data, including misreporting stabbings and carjackings as lesser offenses. Pulliam denies the charges.
But federal prosecutors are now examining potential wrongdoing by multiple police and city officials, according to law enforcement sources.
DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, has repeatedly cited police data showing violent crime down by 27% over the last year to argue against Trump’s federal takeover of local police. The department has separately reported that violent crime fell by 35% in 2024.
The chief of DC’s police union, Gregg Pemberton – who supports federal control – calls both sets of statistics “preposterous”, and said officers know the reality on the streets.
“We go call to call to call – robbery to carjacking to stabbing to shooting,” Pemberton told NBC News Washington last week. “Crime is ubiquitous in every quadrant of the city.”
Pemberton claimed that Washington DC police have a directive to underreport violent crimes.
“What we’ve heard through our members and through members of management that were willing to talk with the union is that this is a directive from the command staff … that they wanna make sure that these classifications of these reports are adjusted over time to make sure that the overall crime stats stay down,” he told NBC. “And this is deliberately done.”
