Gilbert Police Ensnared In Widespread Pattern of Falsifying Crime Data

Pattern of Similar Scandals Emerges in Democrat-Run Cities

These revelations highlight a troubling pattern of crime data manipulation in major U.S. cities, particularly in California and Washington, D.C., raising questions about whether political pressures to project declining crime—often tied to progressive policies—have incentivized inaccurate reporting that misleads the public and undermines effective policing.

In California, longstanding issues persist.

A 2015 Los Angeles Times investigation exposed the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for misclassifying thousands of aggravated assaults as minor offenses over years, artificially deflating violent crime figures in the nation’s second-largest city.

In September 2021, The Globe reported on the history of state Democrats “smoke-and-mirror” policies coupled with data manipulation:

In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 109 called “Public Safety Realignment,” buried in a budget bill.  This new “public safety realignment” prohibits prison sentences for virtually all property felonies, parole violations and even crimes like assault, revising this definition of a felony to include certain crimes that are punishable in local jail for more than one year – making the crime a local problem, rather than a state problem.

Thus the “changes in the state’s reporting practices.”

AB 109 bill analysis defined it: “This bill is related to the realignment of certain low level offenders, adult parolees, and juvenile offenders from state to local jurisdictions.”

AB 109 was the prison “diversion” law that dumped thousands of criminals from state prisons onto local jails, many subsequently being released into the general public and committing crimes. Following passage of AB 109, the Legislature and Governor deviously passed Assembly Bill 1050, ordering the Board of State and Community Corrections to redefine “recidivism” in an obvious effort to manipulate recidivism statistics.

In addition to undermining the state’s Three Strikes law which successfully dealt with recidivist criminals, and while disarming law-abiding California citizens with strict gun control laws, Gov. Brown and state lawmakers pushed and passed a number of initiatives that gutted the criminal justice system:

• weakening parole (AB 109),
• downgrading a host of crimes to misdemeanors (Prop. 47),
• and making dangerous felons eligible for release when they have served just a portion of their sentences (Prop. 57)

In 2024, the Oakland Police Department drew fire for releasing weekly reports that systematically undercount property crimes due to reporting delays, creating the illusion of sharp crime drops. In 2024, boasts of 33 percent reductions were later revealed as misleading comparisons of incomplete current data against full prior-year figures—a practice critics link to defending soft-on-crime approaches amid public backlash.

In July, a Washington D.C. police commander was suspended for allegedly manipulating crime data to make it appear that violent crime has fallen considerably compared to last year. The D.C. police union admitted this fraudulent and deliberate practice was “widespread.” 

Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Gregg Pemberton told News4: “What we’ve heard through our members and through members of management that were willing to talk with the union is that this is a directive from the command staff, is that they wanna make sure that these classifications of these reports are adjusted over time to make sure that the overall crime stats stay down,” Pemberton said. “And this is deliberately done.”

In August, President Trump compared the “violent crime, bedlam and squalor” to Los Angeles and Oakland, CA and through executive order, laid bare the “violent crime crisis” that places the District of Columbia among the “top 20 percent of the most dangerous cities in the world.” After President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in the capitol, crime dropped by double digits within weeks.

In October, California Governor Gavin Newsom, citing city data, claimed crime was down San Francisco, yet the data he shared only related to homicides. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city has logged “only” 19-27 homicides in the first nine months of this year.

Nationwide, the controversy intensified this month with a House Oversight Committee report accusing former Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith of orchestrating a “pressure campaign” to downgrade offenses, fostering a toxic environment where accurate reporting was punished. Smith resigned amid the probe, as allegations surfaced of thousands of misclassified cases aimed at portraying falling crime rates in the capital.