Thirteen Metropolitan Police Department officials received termination papers Monday and were placed on administrative leave after an internal affairs investigation found misconduct tied to crime reporting in the nation's capital. Interim D.C. Police Chief Jeffrey Carroll announced the disciplinary actions at a Tuesday press conference, saying little about the specifics but confirming the probe originated with a referral from the United States Attorney's office earlier this year.
The mass discipline is the most visible fallout yet from a scandal that has dogged MPD since 2025, when federal reports challenged the accuracy of the District's crime statistics and alleged the department had downplayed and misclassified hundreds of offenses. But a source familiar with the department's internal politics told the Daily Caller that the story behind the terminations may be more complicated, and more troubling, than the official version suggests.
Among the 13 officials facing removal is Cmdr. Michael Pulliam, who has denied all allegations. His wife, Capt. Rachel Pulliam, was abruptly transferred out of the Juvenile Investigative Response Unit's youth division in April 2025, just one week after former Police Chief Pamela Smith and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser launched that very unit. She was then reassigned to the midnight shift in the department's 7th district.
Carroll offered a careful statement at Tuesday's press conference, acknowledging the investigation without naming the officials or detailing the findings. He told reporters:
"MPD cannot provide specific information on the findings of internal investigations or propose adverse actions against specific members. Our internal affairs bureau has completed an investigation into crime reporting. This investigation was referred to us earlier this year from the United States Attorney's office. Beyond that, I cannot get into any specifics of the investigation."
He added that "there were allegations of misconduct that were made, and based on those allegations, members were investigated, and the outcome is related to these individuals." MPD told the Daily Caller it "cannot comment further on internal investigations and personnel matters."
The firings are not yet final. Just The News reported that the 13 officers are entitled to a due-process appeals procedure under department general orders before any termination becomes permanent. Carroll confirmed as much, stating that "the administrative process must be allowed to take its course, and that process is outlined in our MPD general orders." Four of the 13 are high-level officials, and a prior Justice Department investigation concluded that MPD's crime statistics were "likely unreliable and inaccurate."
The backdrop matters. Federal reports released in 2025 alleged that MPD under Smith's leadership had systematically downplayed and misclassified hundreds of crimes. For residents of a city already grappling with disorder and public safety concerns, the suggestion that the numbers they relied on were cooked was a breach of basic trust.
Crime statistics are not abstract bureaucratic outputs. They drive patrol assignments, budget decisions, and the public's sense of whether their neighborhoods are safe. When a police department manipulates those numbers, whether to make leadership look effective or to satisfy political pressure from city hall, the people who pay the price are the residents left unprotected in precincts where the real crime rate was hidden.
That is what makes the scope of the alleged manipulation so serious. Hundreds of misclassified crimes means hundreds of victims whose cases may have been trivialized on paper. It means neighborhoods that may have been denied resources because their reported crime rates looked artificially low.
The Daily Caller's source pointed to a different dimension of the story entirely. The source alleged that former Chief Smith sought to shut down dissent within MPD's ranks and that she targeted and reprimanded the Pulliams over what the source described as a personal dispute, not a data-integrity concern.
The timeline around Capt. Rachel Pulliam's transfer raises questions. Smith and Bowser launched the Juvenile Investigative Response Unit, and one week later, Pulliam was yanked out of the unit's youth division. She was then banished to the midnight shift in the 7th district. Whether that sequence reflects legitimate personnel management or retaliation is one of the key unanswered questions in this case.
Cmdr. Michael Pulliam, now facing termination, has denied all allegations against him. NBC News4 reported his denial. Neither the department nor Carroll has publicly specified what conduct led to his inclusion among the 13.
Washington's recent history of law enforcement confrontations and security incidents has kept public attention fixed on whether the city's policing apparatus is functioning at all. The prospect that MPD was simultaneously fudging the books and punishing internal critics does nothing to restore confidence.
Carroll's refusal to discuss specifics is understandable as a matter of personnel law. But it leaves the public in the dark about the most important questions. Which crimes were misclassified? Over what period? Did the manipulation flow from explicit orders, informal pressure, or individual initiative? And was the misconduct concentrated in certain districts or spread across the department?
The referral from the United States Attorney's office suggests federal prosecutors saw enough to warrant a formal internal probe. That is not a routine step. It implies the data problems identified in the 2025 federal reports were serious enough to trigger potential criminal scrutiny, though Carroll did not say whether any criminal charges are under consideration.
The appeals process now ahead of the 13 officials will test whether the terminations hold up. If the department's case is solid, the due-process hearings should confirm it. If the case is thin, or if it turns out that some of these officials were swept up in a dragnet that conflated genuine data manipulation with internal political score-settling, the hearings could expose a different kind of institutional failure.
The broader pattern is familiar to anyone who follows governance in America's major cities. Officials tout declining crime numbers. Leaders claim credit for progress while conditions on the ground tell a different story. When the numbers finally get audited, the gap between the official narrative and reality turns out to be enormous.
D.C. is not the first city to face allegations of cooked crime stats, and it will not be the last. But the combination here, manipulated data, a federal referral, mass terminations, and allegations of internal retaliation, suggests a department that was broken in more ways than one under its previous leadership.
The residents of Washington deserve to know exactly how bad the manipulation was, who ordered it, and whether the people now being fired are the right targets or convenient ones. Carroll's tight-lipped approach may satisfy the lawyers. It does not satisfy the public.
Incidents of gunfire near the most protected real estate in America have already rattled confidence in the capital's security posture. Learning that the police department tasked with protecting ordinary D.C. residents was allegedly lying about the crime picture only deepens the erosion of trust.
The 13 officials now sit on administrative leave, awaiting hearings that will determine whether they lose their careers. The department has said nothing about whether additional personnel could face discipline as the investigation's findings are fully processed. Carroll's statement left open the possibility that the probe's reach extends beyond the current batch of termination papers.
Former Chief Smith, whose tenure is at the center of the data-integrity allegations, has not been quoted publicly on the mass discipline. Her role, and whether she directed, tolerated, or merely failed to prevent the alleged manipulation, remains the most significant unanswered question in the entire affair.
Mayor Bowser, who partnered with Smith to launch the JIRU unit and who presided over the period when crime data was allegedly falsified, has likewise remained silent in the available record. Accountability, if it comes, should not stop at the rank of commander.
When a police department cooks the books, the victims are not just statistical abstractions. They are the people who called 911, filed reports, and were told the system was working, while the numbers said otherwise. Those residents deserved honest data and honest leadership. On both counts, MPD appears to have failed them.
A city that cannot trust its own crime statistics cannot govern itself. And a department that punishes whistleblowers while protecting the official narrative has its priorities exactly backward.
