Washington DC, in addition to being the nation’s capitol, is also a very violent and inhospitable place to live. There is a nationwide trend towards increases in violence taking place as poverty continues to rise that can be seen in most major cities, although many do not want to report on this because of the effects it could have on the economy and political situation, since it would likely cause instability in the former and encourage violence or other forms of demagoguery in the latter that may not be able to exploited well enough for social control without unnecessary and undesired effects. One can see this with the migrant crisis, where while crimes happen, some are not reported, and many are either overreported, exaggerated, and in many cases, outright invented. Thus crime is often a political thing, of either ignoring or amplifying different types of crime in order to generate a certain image.
It is of interest then how a 15-year veteran of the MPD is now coming forward as a whistleblower saying that her department has engaged in a series of covering up violent crimes to get raises for themselves and obscure the dangerous situation from the public as local news WUSA 9 notes.
Djossou, a 15-year MPD veteran previously honored for her service by Police Chief Peter Newsham, is going public with stunning allegations about what she says is going on in her own department.
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She claims D.C. police supervisors are ordering investigators to downgrade crime classifications form more serious crimes to less serious ones to make the city’s crime stats look better.
“The commanders and the captains get promoted, and they get awards, when the crime stats are low,” Djossou said. (source)
Unfortunately, one may expect to see more of such situations. While it has always been a problem, it is likely that there will be more efforts made to not report or underreport crime lest it give a real picture of the state of affairs, which is an economy that is in poor shape, a people that is getting poorer, and frustration being taken out eventually down to the street level.