Metropolitan Police Department Commander Michael Pulliam has been placed on paid administrative leave amid an investigation into allegations that crime statistics in Washington, D.C., were manipulated to understate violent crime in the city.
Pulliam is accused of altering internal crime reports within his district to falsely reflect a significant drop in violent crime compared to the prior year, according to sources and NBC News 4.
The suspension followed Pulliam filing an equal employment opportunity complaint against an assistant chief.
The D.C. Police Union alleges that this case reflects a broader issue, claiming officers are pressured by command staff to downgrade felony offenses.
Such actions reportedly reduce the recorded violent crime in MPD and FBI databases.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, responded to the discrepancy between official crime data and resident experiences on Wednesday in a post on X.
Referencing President Donald Trump’s calls for federal intervention in Washington, D.C., Kirk wrote, “A D.C. police commander has been suspended and is getting investigated for allegedly tweaking crime stats to make them look lower than reality.”
Pulliam was placed on paid leave in May as part of the ongoing inquiry into crime data manipulation.
Violent crime in Washington, D.C., has