Officers with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) have been ordered to misreport crimes, the head of the department’s police union told Fox News host Martha MacCallum Tuesday.

Despite claims from Democrats that violent crime has declined by roughly one-third, MPD data on such incidents reportedly excludes cases of aggravated assault and felony assault, even though Washington laws characterize those offenses as violent. Washington Police Union Chairman Gregg Pembleton told MacCallum during “The Story” that the officers would be told not to report certain crimes.

“Inevitably, you will have a captain or a commander or sometimes a lieutenant show up on the scene and advise them to take a report for a lesser offense,” Pembleton said. “One of the things that we see them do often is sometimes there will be a shooting or a stabbing and if the victim is uncooperative with the police which is not uncommon in some areas of the city, they will be directed to take an injured person to the hospital report which is not even a crime at all but an incident report, sometimes you will have a robbery reported as a theft and other times you will have burglaries reported as unlawful entry or thefts.”

WATCH:

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“This is something that’s been unfortunately part and parcel of the police department for some time, and we are skeptical that these crime stats are accurate,” Pembleton continued.

A high-ranking MPD official, Michael Pulliam, was suspended over allegations regarding the manipulation of crime data, NBC Washington reported. The Trump administration has launched an investigation into the allegations that the numbers were falsely reported.

“What is the motivation? Why are these commanders or higher-ups arriving on the scene during apprehensions and telling police officers to indicate something other than what actually happened at the scene?” MacCallum asked Pemberton.

“Well, the only explanation would be to keep the crime stats down because politically that’s expedient for the police department and elected officials,” Pemberton responded. “I mean. Let’s go back to how we got here. In 2020, the D.C. city council passed a justice reform act, which was a sweeping piece of legislation designed to reduce the size, scope, and responsibilities of police officers, and in addition, it prevented us from holding criminals accountable even when they are convicted of crimes.”

An intern for Republican Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas, Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, was fatally shot on June 30 during a gunfight less than a mile from the White House. Two employees of the Israeli Embassy were killed in a May shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum, allegedly carried out by a pro-Hamas activist.

“Here we are five years later, the police department with an authorized strength of 4000 sworn members and only 3180, leaving us with over 800 vacancies for the position of police officer and in order to make up for that gap, the police department uses 2 million hours of mandatory overtime to cover the demand for police officers,” Pembleton told MacCallum. “So because of that, crime has skyrocketed in the district, and one of the things that we think is going on in the police department, which who knows how high up those directives are coming from, is to make sure that these crime stats are reported in the most favorable way possible.”

MPD didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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