If you're a chief of police, being seen to lower crime is a good thing for your career. After all, that's why you got hired. The problem is that because you're also in charge of collecting the data, the temptation may be there to play with the data to make yourself look better.
And the former police chief of Washington, DC, has been accused of doing just that. Again.
Back in August, Cam wrote about how the police union claimed the books had been cooked to make it look like crime was down.
Now, a House committee has reached the same finding.
BREAKING: D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith allegedly MANIPULATED crime data to ARTIFICIALLY lower the crime stats.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 15, 2025
"Smith COERCED staff to report low data & cultivated culture of fear to achieve her agenda" & "pushed DC Police to pursue lesser charges...for serious crimes"
WTF. pic.twitter.com/RMCc3wKtC1
Let's understand that this is well within the power of a police chief. After all, every officer works for her. If she pushes them to report low data or seek lesser charges, there are potential repercussions for their career if they opt not to listen.
And this creates something of a dangerous mirage for the people of DC.
On one hand, the crime statistics are lower, so many feel safer venturing out in the city. Yet because lesser charges were sought for serious offenses, those dangerous people are far more likely to be back out on the streets in no time at all, thus creating a situation where people are unaware of the potential threats around them, and more predators are out and about.
How Smith (allegedly) thought this was a good idea is beyond me.
OK, that's not true. She was trying to cover her own posterior, and that was the extent of this.
Back in the 1990s, my hometown of Albany, Georgia, wasn't a great place to live. We had a couple of years where we were the murder capital of the United States, per capita. Now, me being me, I made a joke about how it was a close thing, but we pulled together as a community and got those last three murders, but the reality was that it wasn't exactly a good way to turn around a city in decline.
So, according to my dear, old late father--a police sergeant at the time--the chief decided that since most of the homicides were domestic disputes that turned into homicides, they'd send them on to the FBI as "domestic fatalities."
I don't think anyone was fooled, but this was a low-key way to try and shift the statistics without lying.
Smith, however, didn't seem to care. She just pushed her officers--the people she had the power to fire, reassign, or otherwise make their lives difficult--to reduce charges and then pretend that everything was hunky-dory.
As noted in the video, this doesn't seem to rise to the level of a criminal offense. It's just unethical and morally reprehensible, which isn't exactly new for the District of Columbia, but it isn't criminal.
But the DC police and city government need to step up and make some corrections in their department so that this can't happen again. Statistics are only as good as the data given. When the integrity of that system gets compromised, we get problems.
In this case, the Democrats were screaming that DC was already safe, that crime was down, and there was no reason for National Guard troops. We now can see that was an absolute lie, but it seems unlikely that the congressional Democrats were the ones lying, as much as that pains me to admit.
Not on this, I mean. They're lying on plenty of other things, obviously.
