The top cop in the nation’s capital said on Monday that she will step down at the end of the month, as her department faces continued pressure to address violent crime.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said that her final day will be on December 31. Smith, who has served as the district’s police chief for less than three years, told Axios that her decision to resign was not in response to President Donald Trump’s moves to clean up crime in D.C., but she did not give a specific reason for her abrupt departure.
“There comes a time when you just know it’s time,” she said.
The Metropolitan Police Department has been at the center of controversy over high crime rates in D.C., as the city’s homicide rate reached 27.3 per 100,000 residents in 2024, giving the U.S. capital the fourth-highest homicide rate of any city in the country.
The police department is also being investigated by the Justice Department over allegations that it has been manipulating crime data to hide how dangerous the city has become under Democratic leadership. Smith addressed those accusations on Monday, telling Axios that she would “never” order D.C. police to alter crime stats. A D.C. police commander was suspended and placed under investigation for allegedly altering the crime data, and Smith did not say if anyone else at the department is being investigated over the issue.
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As questions swirl around the Metropolitan Police Department’s crime reporting, D.C. officials, including Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, are pointing at crime data to show that the city is at a 30-year low in violent crime and is not in a “crime emergency” as the Trump administration claims.
Trump ripped D.C. leaders over the reports of manipulated crime data and argued that violence in D.C. was “totally out of control.” The president then deployed federal law enforcement and National Guard troops to D.C., a move that infuriated Democrats on Capitol Hill and many district residents.
Smith has been criticized by leftist D.C. residents who believe that the Metropolitan Police Department is cooperating with ICE agents on immigration raids and arrests. Smith said on Monday that her department has not worked with ICE since Trump surged federal law enforcement agents to the city.
“We are not aligned with ICE. We do not, and have not since the crime emergency, worked alongside ICE,” Smith said. “[Social media] videos lend one aspect of what you see. If they show up, they show up. They’re federal officers.”
Smith has also been slammed by some of her own officers, who have questioned her leadership, especially during the Trump administration’s takeover of the department. After Trump declared a “crime emergency” and took over the Metropolitan Police Department in August, D.C. leaders sued the administration, and Trump officials worked out a deal to keep Smith at the helm of the department, but mandating that she cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies.
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