DC cops classified homicides as 'accidental' to make the crime stats look better: lawsuit

A DC Metropolitan Police Department officer has alleged in a lawsuit that law enforcement officials had misclassified deaths " as something other than a homicide" in order to keep the city’s homicide numbers down. The suit was brought against the city and its police department.

Carlos Bundy, a veteran MPD sergeant who has been with the department for 28 years and served on MPD’s homicide unit from 2010 to 2018, alleged in his suit that he had "repeatedly observed MPD purposely mis-categorizing deaths as something other than a homicide in order to keep the District’s homicide numbers down." The suit later stated that Bundy observed MPD personnel "purposely" misclassifying unnatural deaths as things such as "accidents."

"These mischaracteristics are dangerous for the citizens and businesses in the District of Columbia who make decisions about where they will live, socialize, and conduct business based on crime statistics. Sergeant Bundy made many protected disclosures of these mis-categorizations to no avail," the suit stated.

The suit was launched in 2021 and is reportedly scheduled for mediation in 2026, per the Washington Free Beacon. Bundy said he had noticed "improper behaviour" in the homicide unit as well as the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, which he joined in 2018.

Bundy alleged that MPD officials had classified deaths as "undetermined" or "accidental," despite autopsies or physical evidence which identified the manner of death as "homicide." He also alleged that the city failed to investigate suspicious deaths.

In one example noted by Bundy, the lawsuit stated, "MPD had evidence that on November 29, 2019, a suspect murdered another individual by striking him in the head with a brick. MPD had the autopsy report that stated this was a homicide. MPD also had motive evidence and cell phone tracking data and video that placed the suspect at the scene of the crime. Sergeant Bundy’s superiors were aware of this and discussed the case internally. The suspect nevertheless was not charged and MPD falsely and fraudulently reported the victim’s death as an accident.

In another case from October 2020, an unidentified beating victim was taken to the hospital, where he later died. "MPD had the autopsy report that stated that the cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries, and the manner of death was homicide. Despite clear evidence that the decedent had been beaten to death, his death was improperly and fraudulently classified as undetermined."

In regards to the January 2021 discovery of a deceased woman on a local bike path, the suit stated that "even with the obvious foul play signs present on the victim’s body and the death report, the death was not classified as a homicide," instead being classified as a "death of unknown cause in order to avoid adding another homicide to its open cases."

This comes as President Donald Trump has federalized the DC police department and sent in National Guard troops to assist in cracking down on crime in the nation's capital. The Department of Justice is now investigating allegations that crime statistics in the city have been manipulated to appear as though crime rates were lower, after it was revealed that the DC police commander was placed on leave in May and accused of falsifying data.