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Media outlets are fact-checking President Donald Trump’s concerns about violence in Washington, D.C., by pointing to misleading crime statistics.
Trump has moved to increase federal law enforcement’s footprint in D.C.’s streets and take over the local police department after a former Trump administration staffer was assaulted by a mob during a carjacking on August 3. Legacy media outlets and Democratic lawmakers responded to Trump’s complaints about violent crime in D.C. by reporting that it decreased by 35% in 2024, citing local police data that leave out crimes such as felony and aggravated assault, thereby making D.C.’s crime problem appear better than it is since the onset of COVID-19 in 2020. (RELATED: Congress Took Over DC In The 90s — And It Worked)
D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) only includes homicide, sex abuse crimes, assault with a dangerous weapon and robbery in its overall “violent crime” numbers that show a decline in 2024. Aggravated assault and felony assault without the use of weapons are left out, despite D.C. law describing them as violent offenses causing bodily injury and despite the fact that aggravated assaults are increasing, according to the FBI.
“Felony Assault does not fall under the D.C. Index violent offense categories,” the MPD told the Daily Caller News Foundation without answering specific questions.
The FBI includes a broader range of assaults in its violent crime data for D.C. based on what local police provide to the bureau. Consequently, the FBI’s data show that the number of violent offenses in D.C. only decreased by 10% in 2024 and remained slightly higher than in 2018.
The FBI’s numbers also show that homicides have remained higher than pre-pandemic levels in the years since 2020, with the exception of 2021, a year when D.C. submitted incomplete data, according to Axios. Additionally, D.C. saw 12% more aggravated assaults with or without a weapon in 2024 than in 2023 and 37% more than in 2022, per the FBI. (Read more: Daily Caller, 8/11/2025) (Archive)