So this settlement arise from claims that some of the numbers were allegedly too low from 2018 to 2020? (And not murder rates but theft and assault, which are more easily manipulated by lesser charges)? The article is behind a paywall
So maybe there is more info there(?)
I know this will come as a shock, but the right-wing media is vastly overplaying this story. Here's a link (from a right-wing source) with a whole bunch of "damning" evidence.
The District of Columbia has quietly settled a lawsuit from a sergeant who accused Metropolitan Police Department leaders of misclassifying offenses to deflate the district's crime statistics, court records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. Police brass repeatedly told officers to...
freebeacon.com
So here's what the department admitted to: they started classifying thefts under $25 as "taking property without ownership" instead of theft II. That's it. That's the "down-classification."
Here's what that Djoussou alleged: that in a case she worked, the night watchman didn't charge an offense as assault with a deadly weapon when a knife was allegedly thrown at the victim. Except as the attached transcript of the recording shows, she apparently did not really know the law -- but more importantly, she called the captain at 4:30 AM for an "emergency" report. And the captain was not interested in what amounted to a judgment call. There might have been a knife thrown, but it did not hit anyone and the victim -- who did suffer some injuries from fisticuffs -- declined to be hospitalized.
Obviously a thrown knife can be an assault with a dangerous weapon, but the elements of the crime are under-specified. I'm not even sure where they reside, because they are not defined in the statute. There's an example from the DC Metro Police training manual to suggest that a man who waves a knife around could be committing an assault punishable by up to 10 years in jail. That is obviously excessive, and the captain talking to Djoussou made that point. He asked if throwing a shoe should be classified as ADW, and she said no, that would be excessive, and the captain said that the shoe technically qualifies under the relevant authority. And so they discussed how a judgment call must be made.
The captain also referred to the model jury instruction for that offense as a reason not to upcharge. I didn't find that, but it would make sense if the jury instructions narrow the crime a bit. For instance, there might be an instruction about what must be shown for a thrown object to be dangerous. Djoussou seemed to be under the impression that a knife thrown in any direction would be ADW as long as there was also a simple assault. That seems wrong. She revised it to the victim "dodged" but who knows what the actual evidence for that would be.
In any event, Djoussou did not allege, from my skim of the material, any pattern as to this down charging -- but rather, this was a one-off and because she questioned the captain's judgment, she was retaliated against. I don't know -- calling the captain at 4:30 AM for the express purpose of a "notification" might make them a bit pissed off.
The only down charging the department admitted to, and the only that I've seen alleged, is charging a theft of less than $25 as a lesser offense punishable by 90 instead of 180 days in jail.