D.C. Settles Lawsuit Revealing Alleged 500% Surge in Misclassified Theft Offenses

The District of Columbia has quietly settled a lawsuit filed by former Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) sergeant Charlotte Djossou, who accused department leaders of systematically misclassifying offenses to artificially deflate the city's crime statistics. Court records, internal MPD emails, depositions, and phone call transcripts reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon indicate police brass repeatedly instructed officers to downgrade serious crimes, including theft, knife attacks, and violent assaults, to lesser offenses. The settlement, which occurred on August 5, highlights long-standing concerns about the accuracy of D.C.'s reported crime rates.

A key tactic identified in the lawsuit involved reclassifying theft and shoplifting incidents as "Taking Property Without Right" (TPWOR), an offense not included in the city's public crime reports. Internal directives, such as an email from MPD Captain Sean Conboy in March 2019, explicitly asked officers to use the TPWOR classification for minor thefts. Following these instructions, the number of crimes categorized as TPWOR reportedly surged by 500 percent, effectively removing them from official crime statistics.

Furthermore, the lawsuit detailed instances where violent crimes were allegedly downgraded. Former MPD Lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky, who is now serving a sentence for an unrelated murder cover-up, admitted in a deposition that these reclassifications were intended to obscure crime from public view. Sergeant Michelle Starr also told investigators that "managers at the district routinely changed felony classifications to misdemeanors," including cases like a woman with a deep facial wound being recorded as a "Sick person to the hospital" instead of an assault with a dangerous weapon.

Djossou, who joined the force after serving in Iraq, filed her lawsuit in 2020, alleging that MPD leadership retaliated against her for speaking out against the scheme. She accused MPD brass of attempting to "distort crime statistics" by "downgrading a number of felonies to misdemeanors, so that there will be 'fewer' felonies in the statistics." Her allegations were corroborated by multiple officers during an internal affairs investigation initiated in 2019.

The quiet settlement of Djossou's case emerged just days before President Donald Trump issued an order to temporarily federalize the MPD and deploy federal law enforcement to the city. This development adds to ongoing scrutiny of D.C.'s crime data, especially following the recent suspension of MPD Commander Michael Pulliam over similar allegations of falsifying crime statistics. The D.C. police union chairman, Gregg Pemberton, has also stated that command staff explicitly instruct officers to reclassify felonies, mirroring issues seen in other major U.S. cities like Los Angeles and New York.