If you’re a major blue city plagued by runaway violent crime and social decay, is it best to just declare victory and avert your eyes to the chronic problems you haven’t been able to resolve for decades?
An epidemic of random violence has so plagued Washington, DC, that an exasperated President Donald Trump has federalized the DC police and has deployed the National Guard to be part of the crime-fighting force. Trump drew international attention to an early August attempted carjacking in which a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer was left bloodied in the streets. The assault happened in an increasingly upscale Logan Circle neighborhood that is host to a thriving restaurant and bar scene.
Two 15-year-old youths have been charged. They are said to have been part of a pack of teens that allegedly attacked the victim.
And yet in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, the Department of Justice, in conjunction with DC police officials, issued a glowing press release titled “Violent Crime in DC Hits 30 Year Low.”
Crime Solvers: ‘Take a Report for a Lesser Offense’
“Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and announced by United States Attorney Matthew M. Graves,” the release began. “In addition to the overall violent crime reduction, homicides are down 32%; robberies are down 39%; armed carjackings are down 53%; assaults with a dangerous weapon are down 27% when compared with 2023 levels, with the District reporting the fewest assaults with dangerous weapons and burglaries in over 30 years.”
Hmmm. What’s going on here?
This may provide a clue. “A DC police commander is under investigation for allegedly making changes to crime statistics in his district,” WRC-TV in Washington reported July 18. Michael Pulliam is involved in a dispute with superiors that has led the local police union to reveal that altering crime statistics is a common practice in DC.
“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 told WRC. “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.”
Is it really that easy to create an instant dramatic decrease in your violent crime stats? Police union officials say that is precisely the intent.
“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, is 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,” Pemberton said. “And this is deliberately done.”
Nearby Democrat-dominated city Baltimore also took a victory lap in its efforts to combat runaway crime at the same time that local merchants are proclaiming the situation is more horrific than ever.
“Baltimore’s federal delegation gathered in City Hall [on July 14] to highlight progress on some of the city’s longest-running struggles, such as lowered crime rates, fewer vacant properties and reductions in overdose deaths,” leftist local news site Maryland Matters reported in July.
That sounds eerily similar to the spin in neighboring DC.
“Recently, the mayor’s office announced that Baltimore has recorded a 22.7% decrease in homicides and a 19.6% decline in nonfatal shootings since last July,” the outlet wrote. “Other crime statistics have also come down. Compared to last year, auto thefts have dropped 34%, robberies are down 22%, arson is down 10% and carjackings are down 15%, according to recent data from city officials.”
“Today is not a cause for celebration – (it is) for recognition of where we are and where we have come and the work that remains for us to go further,” Democrat Mayor Brandon Scott declared.
Local retailers certainly aren’t celebrating.
‘This Is the Worst That I Have Seen’
“Business owners in Baltimore's Federal Hill are voicing concerns over what they say is a worsening crime problem in the popular entertainment district, following the shooting of a 39-year-old woman” over the Aug. 2-3 weekend, WJZ-TV in Baltimore reported.
“This is the worst that I have seen in the neighborhood, honestly,” restaurateur Andrew Wheeler told the station. “Every neighborhood goes through its ups and downs. We've had some rough summers here and there, but this is the worst that I have seen.”
Democrats who run the city say crime rates are plummeting. Wheeler’s personal experiences tell him the complete opposite. Who is speaking the truth?
“The loitering that's going on, the violence that's going on, none of it is making anybody feel safer,” Wheeler continued. “We're kind of numb to it at this point. Fifteen years ago in Federal Hill, if something like Saturday happened, everybody would be shocked.”
While Mayor Scott was restraining himself from jubilation, this is what has been going on in the popular Baltimore neighborhood.
“Last month, 62 vehicles were damaged in Federal Hill. A couple weeks later, a woman was hospitalized after being struck by a stray bullet in front of Nobles Bar and Grill,” WBAL-TV reported earlier this month.
Unlike DC, no charges of wrongdoing have been aired about Baltimore city officials. Yet the brazen duplicity holds true in both blue burgs. It takes a special kind of gall for politicians who have had a decades-long stranglehold over the running of a city in obvious steep decline to look the residents they have failed so miserably in the eye and tell them “see, all is well” as gunshots ring out and random mayhem rages out of control.
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