Internal documents, whistleblowers point to alleged underreporting of crime by DC Police
Whistleblowers claim assault, theft cases being downgraded to improve department’s crime stats.

WASHINGTON — Two D.C. police officers have accused their MPD superiors of rigging crime stats to make them look better. Now, WUSA9 has obtained internal documents the whistleblowers say proves their case.

On a hot summer afternoon in August 2019, a woman standing outside a liquor store in Petworth asked a man to buy her some water, according to one of the police reports reviewed by investigative reporter Eric Flack.

What happened next, according to that police report, was unimaginable. The man allegedly slashed the woman’s face and neck with an unknown object, sending her to the hospital.

That might sound like an “assault with a dangerous weapon,” a felony charge that can get you 10 years in prison.

But that’s not the way D.C. Police reported it; instead classifying the alleged crime as a “simple assault” – a misdemeanor that only carries a maximum of 6-months in jail.

In a second case, in the early morning hours on December 25, a night of drinking between a man and his boyfriend ended in an alleged case of domestic violence inside a Columbia Heights apartment.

According to that police report, the suspect grabbed his partner and held a knife to his neck while screaming profanities. But once again the police report says officers did not record the incident as an assault with a dangerous weapon, or even an aggravated assault, which is also a felony.

Instead, the police report shows investigators once again opted to classify the alleged attack as a misdemeanor “simple assault.” In the end, those police reports show neither case ended up being prosecuted.

So why would MPD seemingly downplay crimes in the District by labeling them less serious than they actually were?

Two veteran officers say it is all by design. And they have the documents they say prove it.

“I’m a sergeant for the Metropolitan Police Department, and I’m a whistleblower,” D.C. Police Sgt. Charlotte Djossou said in public testimony January 16 before DC Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety.

WUSA9 has now obtained the internal police reports and emails Sgt. Djossou and Officer Knight handed over to Councilmember Charles Allen, the committee chairman, as evidence of their claims that some D.C. Police supervisors are ordering investigators to downgrade crime classifications from more serious crimes to less serious ones.

The goal, the officers say, is to make the city’s crime stats look better.

In addition to those two assault cases, the paperwork obtained by WUSA9 includes evidence that non-violent crimes are being downplayed as well.

An email from an MPD captain in the Fourth District dated March 12 instructs officers to stop using the classification of theft in the second degree where the value of the property stolen is under $25.

Instead, the captain writes that officers should use a charge most people have never heard of: “taking property without right.” It’s an obscure crime designation that carries a maximum of three months in jail rather than the six-month sentence that could come with a theft charge.

Subsequent emails show three separate cases where officers followed that captain’s directive reclassifying theft charges to that lesser known “taking property without right” charge. In two of the cases, those emails cited a lack of “solvability factors” as the reason.

That didn’t sit well with Sgt. Djossou and Officer Knight, and apparently it didn’t sit well with the district commander either. Months later, he stepped in to reverse that captain’s order in another email discontinuing use of classification “taking property without right” altogether.

So why does how a crime is classified matter?

“It sends the message that this is insignificant,” said Sandra Jackson, executive director of the House of Ruth, which shelters and advises victims of domestic violence……..