Audit Says Pittsburg Police Did Not Deliberately Falsify or Misclassify Crime Statistics

On Monday, the Contra Costa District Attorney and Sheriff released a report regarding their investigation of the “Suspicious Circumstances” Reports by the Pittsburg Police Department.

The report found that of the 204 reports reviewed in the audit, that 103 were improperly classified as “suspicious circumstances”. However, it did not account for more than 1% of the department’s crime reports for 2015 and had minimal impact on the overall crime statistics.

The report stated, “The fact clearly undermines the allegation that the police department deliberately falsified or misclassified crimes. The fact that nearly all the face sheets of the reports actually listed correct times also undermines the allegation of intentional deception.”
The report also suggested the Pittsburg Police Department provided updated UCR training and construct a new report writing policy and procedures to reflect current industry standards.

Here is a typed out copy of the Report:

July 15, 2016

Brian Addington
Chief of Police
Pittsburg, Police
65 Civic Drive
Pittsburg, CA 94565

Re: Audit of 2015 PPD “Suspicious Circumstances” Reports

Dear Chief Addington

In May of this year, you made a request of the District Attorney’s Office to conduct an examination of all Pittsburg Police reports that had been classified as “Suspicious Circumstances” during the 2015 calendar year. You asked that we provide you with an opinion as to whether or not these reports had been properly classified. We agreed to conduct the audit in partnership with the Sheriff’s Office.

Specifically, you sought our opinions as to whjether or not the classifications of the reports was consistent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program guidelines. As you’re aware, the UCR Program has been in existence since the 1930’s and tracks certain crimes throughout the United States.

Annually, the FBI Publishes a “Crime in the United States” report based on the data provided by local law enforcement agencies. The UCR divides crime into two classifications; eight of the most serious offenses are Part 1 crimes (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson). Certain other crimes are tracked as Part II offenses.

I assigned Lieutenant of Inspectors Craig Ojala from my staff to conduct to conduct examination and Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston assigned Lieutenant Melissa Klawuhn from his staff to participate in the audit. Lieutenant Craig Ojala has 35 years of experience in Law Enforcement. He previously worked at the Alameda Police Department starting as a police officer, and promoting through the ranks until ultimately he was the interim Chief of Police for an extended period. He is well versed in the UCR reporting requirements.

Sheriff’s Lieutenant Melissa Klawuhn has 13 years of experience in law enforcement including the past 3 years in the Office of the Sheriff Internal Affairs Unit. She also is very knowledgeable regarding Uniform Crime Reporting.

Your determined through your record management system that there had been 209 incidents classified as “suspicious circumstances” during 2015. Of those 209 incidents, 5 report numbers had been “issued in error”; resulting in the total number of 204 actual reports in full to our offices for the purpose of examination.

The lieutenants initially examined each of the 204 police reports separately; a process that took several days to complete. Upon completion of the initial examination, the Lieutenants met to discuss their findings and realized without actually discussing the reports with each other, they were in agreement of 198 of the 204 reports as to how those reports should have been classified.

Over the next three days, the Lieutenants thoroughly reviewed together each of the 204 police reports. They determined that 103 of the reports should not have been classified as “Suspicious Circumstances”, instead; they should have been documented as crimes.

Of these 103 incorrectly classified police reports, 40 should have been reported as Part 1 crimes, while 63 should have been reported as Part II crimes.

Attachment A

Interestingly, on 101 of the 103 police reports, the correct type of crime was listed as “Possible” crime on the face sheet of the reports under the category “Classification.” However, under the category of “Code Selection” also contained on the face sheet of the police reports, the words “Suspicious Circumstances” were listed (attachment A is an example of the practice.) Although the police reports listed the applicable crime, apparently your department did not report the 103 incidents as crimes to the FBI.

The Lieutenants agreed that some of the 103 reports may have ultimately ended up with a disposition of “unfounded”, however, the detailed outline in those reports clearly provided the elements of criminal offenses and should have been initially reported as crimes to comply with proper UCR procedures. (You indicated that your department later determined that 25 of the 103 crimes reported were in fact unfounded.)

Prior to finalizing this report, the Lieutenants discussed their examination with a recognized Public Safety Records Complaints organization. The organization reviewed each of the 103 reports identified as being incorrectly classified. The findings were consistent with those of the Lieutenants.

Your department has informed us that of the 103 police reports, the crimes described in 69 of those reports are currently under investigation by your department.

It should be noted that in 2015 calendar year, the Pittsburg Police Department wrote 9,975 police reports. Thus, the 103 police reports we have discussed are only 1% of all police reports written that year.

With 7,729 police reports submitted as UCR statistics for 2015, the addition of 103 reports results in the following changes:

Crime Rates With Originally Reported Statistics

Part I: 2,655 (39.4 per 1,000)
Part II: 5,074 (75.0 per 1,000)

Crime Rate after 103 Unreported Crimes are included:

Part I: 2,695 (39.9 per 1,000)
Part II: 5,137 (76 per 1,000)

The chart shows that had the 103 Suspicious Circumstances cases been correctly classified and reported by the FBI, there would have been minimal impact on the city’s crime rate. The fact clearly undermines the allegation that the police department deliberately falsified or misclassified crimes. The fact that nearly all the face sheets of the reports actually listed correct times also undermines the allegation of intentional deception.

It should be noted that these crimes ares are very low for a city the size of Pittsburg.

Our commendation would be to provide updated UCR training to your personnel, and construct a new report writing policies and procedures that reflect current industry standards.

Very Truly Yours,

Mark A Peterson
District Attorney

David Livingston
Sheriff