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Washington, D.C., police chief Pamela Smith is resigning her position after just two and a half years on the job, she announced Monday.
Smith has faced intense pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration, which took over the Metropolitan Police Department earlier this year and deployed federal law enforcement throughout the city.
“There comes a time when you just know it’s time,” Smith told Axios, which first reported her resignation.
“I am deeply humbled, grateful, and deeply appreciative of my time with the District of Columbia. Serving as Chief of Police has been the greatest honor of my career, and I want to extend my sincere thanks to Mayor Muriel Bowser for appointing me to this position and to the DC Council for their steadfast support throughout my tenure,” she said in a statement.
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Bowser praised Smith’s work as police chief in her own statement on Monday, saying she weathered “attacks on our city’s autonomy.”
Smith has faced criticism from some D.C. residents who claim she has allowed MPD officers to assist federal agents in immigration enforcement, a claim she denies.
“We are not aligned with ICE. We do not, and have not since the crime emergency, worked alongside ICE,” Smith told Axios. “[Social media] videos lend one aspect of what you see. If they show up, they show up. They’re federal officers.”
Smith has also faced controversy within her own department, with many rank-and-file officers accusing higher-ups of reclassifying crimes to make the city’s crime data appear more benign.
As of October, roughly three dozen rank-and-file officers and detectives had lodged complaints with the Justice Department, as the city faces an investigation into whether crime statistics were intentionally misreported under the Trump administration.
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According to officers, MPD leadership had for months — and in some cases years — instructed subordinates to downgrade serious offenses. Some precinct-level reports are said to have contained as many as 150 potentially misclassified incidents in the Southeast D.C. Seventh District alone. In about half of those cases, supervisors later upgraded the charges.
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“I as the chief of police never, would ever say to anyone to alter stats,” Smith said Monday.
While city leaders and Democrats point to data showing violent crime is at a 30-year low, the DOJ and House Oversight Committee are probing whether those numbers are being masked by internal manipulation.
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The DOJ’s criminal probe is being run out of D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office.
Fox News’ David Spector contributed to this report.
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