A new report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform accuses the outgoing Washington D.C. police chief of falsifying crime statistics to make the city seem safer than it was.
Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Pamela A. Smith, according to the Republican-led committee, “pressured and at times directed commanders to manipulate crime data in order to maintain the appearance of low crime in the nation’s capital.”
The Oversight Committee explained on X that DC Chief Smith “pressured staff to manipulate crime data by miscategorizing publicly reportable crimes into lower categories.”
The Committee added that these falsified crime stats put “Americans at risk by creating an illusion of a safe city.”
Smith was sworn in as MPD police chief—the first black female to serve in that role—by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) on July 17, 2023. She was previously the Chief Equity Officer, leading the department’s efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).