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City Cast DC

Kaela Cote-Stemmermann

Welcome to our weekly D.C. mini crossword! The answers hinges on your knowledge of D.C. and local news. How fast can you complete it?

Emma Uber

Parents whose children are found in violation of the D.C. youth curfew will face criminal charges, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro announced at a news conference Friday.

Pirro said her office would immediately begin “aggressively prosecuting parents” under a statute of the D.C. Code that addresses “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” If convicted, she said parents could face fines, mandatory classes or up to six months of jail time.

“Parents, if you don’t control your kids, the District will,” Pirro said.

“Teen takeovers” – large gatherings of teenagers that have at times erupted in violence – have become a fixation of Trump administration officials, D.C. leaders and local residents alike. Earlier this month, the D.C. Council voted to extend the police chief’s power to declare targeted 8 p.m. curfew zones through 2028. But the legislation is not expected to go into effect until late summer, and the council has tabled a vote on the emergency version of the bill three times, leaving the District without a stricter policy when schools get out for summer. Opponents of the curfew – including mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George – have voiced concerns that it could lead to overpolicing of teens.

Without the emergency bill in place, the current youth curfew applies to teens under 17 and begins after midnight on weekends. Young people cannot be arrested for curfew violations, but are sometimes detained and taken to the city’s youth detention facility until a parent picks them up. Police have arrested youth at teen takeovers for other offenses.

D.C. police have at times devoted more than half of the department’s on-duty officers to dispelling teens from curfew zones, a police official told City Cast DC, a resource strain on a department already facing historically low staffing levels.

Pirro said D.C. police will be responsible for issuing parental citations whenever a minor’s curfew violation is connected to a teen takeover. D.C. police and the police union did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

The council needs nine votes to pass emergency legislation, but has not been able to secure the supermajority in past sessions. It keeps tabling the vote, seemingly in an effort to avoid officially rejecting the bill and giving federal officials ammo to call the council soft on crime.

But the inaction has not been well-received. Pirro has previously lambasted the council on national television, and again railed against councilmembers Friday.

“Mayor Muriel Bowser has repeatedly requested curfew zones and emergency measures while the D.C. Council refuses to deal with the problem,” Pirro said Friday. “Their lack of action creates an extremely dangerous situation for the people of the District and even the teens themselves.”

In a statement to City Cast DC, council member Brianne K. Nadeau bit back. Earlier this month, Nadeau proposed a pair of successful amendments to the curfew bill: one to sunset the curfew in 2028, which she said gives the city time to work out a long-term solution that does not involve police, and one prohibiting police from taking teens detained for curfew violations to detention centers to await parental pickup. 

"How does putting a parent in jail for letting their kid go out keep them from going out? And does it now mean they can’t take [care of] their kids?" Nadeau said in a email Friday. "Will the kids end up in foster care? All because a parent didn’t know their kid might end up at a “teen takeover,” which is not a crime? Try again."

While Pirro has focused on so-called “young punks” in her public appearances, her office is not legally permitted to prosecute anyone under the age of 16. And even then, minors prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office must be facing serious charges like murder, sexual assault or burglary. Otherwise, the D.C. Attorney General’s Office handles youth offenders.

Pirro has been vocal about her ambitions to expand her office’s power, saying she would like the ability to prosecute children as young as 12 as adults. In the press conference Friday, she said though she cannot prosecute children, her position does not preclude her from going after their parents.

“The shame of this is that we are protecting your children, the ones who may join a teen takeover out of simple curiosity because you won’t,” Pirro said. “This doesn't require new legislation folks, it’s all there. And it sends a clear message to the parents that you must supervise your kids or face criminal consequences.”

During the news conference, Pirro and other Trump administration officials also announced an increase in federal law enforcement in D.C. over the summer. The initial surge of federal agents to the District began in August, when President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and launched the DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force. 

On Friday, officials heralded the task force as a success, pointing to the nearly 13,000 arrests made during the surge, and doubled down on their efforts. An additional 1,500 National Guard troops will be sent to D.C., bringing the total number of troops to 5,000. Federal agencies will receive more resources as well, said U.S. Marshals Director Gadyaces Serralta. For instance, the number of Homeland Security Investigation agents in D.C. will double.

The sharp focus on public safety comes ahead of celebrations this summer for American's 250th birthday, during which visitors are expected to flock to D.C.

"Washington D.C. is our nation's capital and it should be the safest place to visit in our entire nation," Serralta said.

The crackdown also comes on the heels of the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting, and after a year of seemingly politically motivated attacks in D.C. and around the country, including the shooting of two National Guardsmen and the killing of a young couple outside the Capital Jewish Museum.

"As we all approach, finally, the 250th anniversary, I want to be clear," Pirro said. "My message to anyone who seeks to commit political violence in this district: D.C. is not the place. You will be held accountable and you will face the full wrath of the law.”

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said parents could face fines or up to six months of jail time.


Pirro Says She Will Prosecute Parents of Kids Participating in "Teen Takeovers"

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“This was a huge mistake,” I said to myself as I pulled into an empty residential lot in Beltsville, Maryland. It was the first of three stops where I planned to try food from Facebook Marketplace — an adventure I thrust upon myself despite my editors' warnings.

My first order, a Dominican stewed pork dish, was waiting for me but my trepidation about buying food from a stranger on the internet was hard to shake. I unearthed a stray bottle of Tums from my back seat. If I was going to do this, the least I could do was be prepared.

Facebook Marketplace is known as a platform where you can get anything, including food. Since the pandemic, it’s become a sort of 

. A quick local search shows dozens of postings for everything from Dominican breakfast plates and homemade Libyan food to bowls of sago sago and tamales sold by the dozen. The prices are surprisingly cheap (I’m talking $2 a tamale) and the sellers range from weekend hobbyists to full-time home chefs trying to break into the restaurant industry.

Recently, videos of people trying food from Facebook have gone viral. I first saw the trend when Florida-based food influencer Gabriel Rivera came across my feed. I watched in disbelief (along with 33 million other people) as he picked up a $160 

Rivera said he’s gained more than 700,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok since starting his Facebook food haul videos. And he’s not the only one: food reviewers like 

 are getting in on it. Personally, it’s been blowing up my feed for months.

Rivera thinks people love his videos because they like seeing him support small businesses. But personally, I watch them to satisfy a sense of sick curiosity. So, I decided to spend a whole weekend buying and trying food on Facebook Marketplace to answer what had become a burning question: Was the best food in D.C. coming out of home kitchens rather than restaurants?

This was my dream now. I couldn’t be talked out of it.

I exit my car and stand on Eva’s patio, shifting awkwardly as I wait for her to fry my guava empanadas. Her eight-year-old daughter circles around me in a pair of bright pink roller skates. I only just met her but now we’re best friends.

Eva Peguero has been selling Dominican food on Facebook Marketplace as 

 for eight years. She first became known for her empanadas at her daughter's school where parents and neighbors insisted she start selling them.

Over the last year, Peguero has turned selling food into her full-time job. She takes up to 60 orders a week, waking up at 4:30 a.m. to prep Wednesday through Sunday.

Most of Peguero’s orders come from Facebook, like myself, or through word of mouth. She also often takes on catering gigs around the neighborhood and at her daughter’s school, where she is the head of the Parent Teacher Association. Long term, she hopes to open her own restaurant.

When Peguero brings out my food, she also brings out an extra plate for the geese roaming the patio.

“Everything started because I'm that friend where everybody comes to my house to eat. If you tell me you're having a bad day, I will show up with food.”

Selling food on Facebook Marketplace has also helped Peguero build a relationship with her daughter, Daniella. The menu, which she posts in the morning, is determined by whatever Daniella feels like eating that day. Today, that is Carne de Cerdo Guisada — stewed pork and rice — with a side of freshly fried plantains. Other dishes in the rotation include empanadas, oxtail, and Dominican breakfast plates.

Like many of the Facebook listings I came across, Peguero specializes in ethnic dishes that can be hard to find in the DMV outside of a home kitchen. Many postings are in Spanish, Tagalog, or Amharic, advertising home-made cultural dishes I had never seen on a restaurant menu.

“I try to keep the authentic Dominican flavor,” she said, explaining that she was never satisfied with the nearby Dominican restaurants which she says have a more “Americanized” flavor.

I ask how much I owe and Eva looks to Daniella, who I have quickly come to realize is both her business accountant and social media manager.

“That will be $25,” says Daniella, thinking for a second before adding, “and 4 cents.”

“4 cents?” I inquire. Something tells me she made that last part up.

Of course, tax, how could I be so foolish. I Cash-app her the full $25.04.

The thing I have come to understand about Facebook Marketplace food is that it’s essentially a game of roulette. For every good food posting, there are a dozen old, unappetizing, or straight-up outlandish ones.

I avoided the vendors selling old meat out of their freezer and one hawking an abhorrently red “secret ramen” that I can only assume involved Cheetos. (“Delish

” was the description.) But, even more frustrating was that many of the people I contacted were already sold out for the week. One, offering viral Ilocos empanadas, was sold out until 

So, despite my best intentions, not every purchase I made was a winner. As was the case with my next stop. I had ordered a dozen tamales earlier in the week for pickup, but hadn’t heard from the seller that day. Could the tamale lady be…ghosting me?

My suspicions were confirmed when I showed up to a house in Shaw with blacked-out windows and not a soul in sight. The self-doubt flooded in. I had turned what should have been a fun fact into a multi-day saga without even a tamale to show for it.

I send a rare Sunday Slack message. “Tamales a bust.”

The only thing getting me to my last stop was that it was just blocks away from my bed in Mt. Pleasant. 

 invites me in and I’m immediately in awe of her operation. She is pumping out dozens of empanadas and alfajores in a rowhouse kitchen she shares with four roommates. The day’s orders are neatly organized on a large dining table in the living area. And, judging by the toasty scent, quite fresh.

As someone who barely remembers to run their dishwasher, it’s a feat I can only begin to imagine.

Luz has been selling food on Facebook Marketplace since January. Unlike Eva, she has a full-time job and only prepares orders every other weekend. She can often have up to 20 orders each time.

I ask if she had thought about selling at the farmer’s market around the corner.

“I thought about it, but I would need a bunch of registrations, and I would need to do it 

weekend,” Luz said. “I do this for fun.”

She started partly because she loves cooking, and partly because she saw a gap in the market for good Argentinian food in D.C.

“I'm from Argentina,” Luz said. “Whenever I want to buy something like this, nobody sells it …  I think there is like one Argentinian restaurant, but it’s in Rockville.”

She hands me my order. A mixed dozen alfajores, which come with six traditional and six chocolate and pistachio flavors of her own creation. “Make sure you keep them in the fridge,” she says, an order I quickly forget and then regret.

By the time I'm eating them, the chocolate is but a puddle of mud. It’s still ridiculously good. “Made with love & lots of dulce de leche!” I read on her card. Despite the melting chocolate I think both those things still stand. I feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth.

These home cooks exist in a regulatory grey area in D.C. The city’s cottage food law allows cooks to sell non-perishable food products, like baked goods, from residential kitchens. However, cooks still can’t sell anything perishable, like meat or cut fruit. Other home kitchen licenses, such as a catering license, can cost up to $5,000 a year, often taking several weeks or months to obtain.

“We don’t have a license that technically fits, there are ways to get around it, but I know you should not be operating,” said Kelechi Ukwuoma, a program manager at D.C.’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, which handles food permits and business activity in D.C. Buying food online, he said, is "at your own risk."

For now, the Facebook Marketplace food scene is alive and well here in the DMV, and I, for one, am happy about it. Forty-eight hours after my purchases, I haven’t taken a single Tum, I’ve eaten incredible homemade food, and I have a new eight-year-old best friend. I can confidently say my quest has been a success.

In fact, I already have an order for those Ilocos empanadas set for next month.

From tamales to seafood boils, the viral Facebook Marketplace food trend is hitting the DMV. 

Eating Facebook Marketplace Food for An Entire Weekend in DC

D.C. food, culture, and everything worth your time. Sign up for Kaela Cote-Stemmermann's weekly newsletter covering everything weird and wonderful about D.C. — from events and restaurant openings to dating and internet trends.

DC Food & Drink

Obsessed

City Cast DC staff

Beloved newsletter editor Kaela Cote-Stemmermann is taking a new role at City Cast DC, where she will cover food and culture and author a weekly newsletter called “Obsessed.” Her newsletter, 

, will feature original reporting and local recs that bring readers closer to D.C.

Kaela joined City Cast DC in 2022. Over the past four years as Senior Newsletter Editor, she published more than 1,000 editions of City Cast DC’s popular daily newsletter, delivering smart, digestible local news to Washingtonians. Under her authorship, the newsletter grew by more than 60,000 subscribers, becoming one of the most-read newsletters in the City Cast network.

Her food writing has taken her across the city, from interviewing the DMV’s first 3-star Michelin chef 

 at the Inn at Little Washington to sharing a bowl of spicy noodles with 

 whose celebrated Chinese restaurants pioneered D.C.’s Sichuan cooking scene. She also 

, a social restaurant-ranking app quietly reshaping how D.C. foodies discover and track their meals, interviewing the app's top-ranked D.C. user.

 are beloved, including her original “Walk a Mile” series where she explores a mile-long stretch in D.C., uncovering everything from Ethiopian breakfasts to natural wine bars along the way.

," a love letter to Washington that resonated widely during the city's federal takeover, an ongoing guide to 

“As City Cast DC expands, moving Kaela into a reporting role made so much sense,” said Senior Executive Producer Annie Rees. “Over the four years she’s been at City Cast, she has built a loyal following of readers — the team often jokes she’s our local celebrity, because of how excited people are to meet her at member events — and her writing frequently makes me laugh out loud. I’m so excited to read “Obsessed” and I know the rest of D.C. will be too.”

“I was a fan of Kaela before I even joined City Cast,” said Managing Editor Yu Vongkiatkajorn. “Her voice, curation, and sense of humor always made the newsletter a pleasure to read. I’m so excited for Kaela to bring her skills to this beat, help us make the most out of living in D.C., and share all the weird and wonderful things about this city.”

Previously, Kaela worked in communications at the Department of State and covered antitrust and competition law at Global Competition Review.

A Boston native and graduate of Scripps College in Los Angeles, Kaela lives in Adams Morgan with a cranky cat. When she isn’t sleuthing for local gossip, you can find her biking around to her favorite cafes.

Yu Vongkiatkajorn Joins City Cast DC as Managing Editor

Yu Vongkiatkajorn is joining City Cast DC as Managing Editor. She’ll edit the beat reporters’ original reporting and their newsletters. Yu is the second editor hired as part of a major expansion in City Cast DC’s newsroom.

Yu Vongkiatkajorn is an editor who has helped lead coverage and audience strategy at The Washington Post. Most recently, she served as the breaking news and general assignment editor on the Metro desk, where she led a team focused on timely, original stories about life in the Washington region.

Earlier at the Post, Yu worked on initiatives to reach new audiences, helping launch newsletters, podcasts and other editorial experiments in collaboration with product, marketing and analytics teams. She also developed a process for conducting newsroom analyses and providing strategic recommendations.

“When we began looking for the right person to fill this role, one person’s name kept coming up: ‘Yu – have you met Yu?’ ‘Hire Yu,’” said Annie Rees, Senior Executive Producer of City Cast DC.” From the moment we talked with her, it was clear why she was so universally regarded by reporters and editors she worked with. Sharp, clear-headed and creative, with years of Metro and Audience experience to boot, she is a crucial piece in making City Cast DC a local powerhouse.”

Yu will be working alongside Michael Schaffer, City Cast DC’s Executive Editor, to shape CCDC’s new products. “We want to publish impactful, attention-getting journalism about Washington even as the local media environment undergoes a wild shift,” Schaffer said. “Yu immediately got the idea of galvanizing a team to do stuff that connects with an audience and obliges that audience to follow what we're up to.”

Yu began her journalism career at Mother Jones in San Francisco. She grew up in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Emma Uber is joining Cast Cast DC as a reporter. She'll write a twice-weekly newsletter with the juiciest, most memorable, most consequential stories playing out in the DMV. Emma is the first reporter hired as part of a major expansion in City Cast DC's newsroom.

Previously, Emma covered local breaking news and public safety for The Washington Post, where she distinguished herself with scoops and sharp stories. Emma began covering D.C. police for The Post just days before President Donald Trump federalized the city's police force and deployed the National Guard. She analyzed 

 to deliver a comprehensive account of how an unprecedented federal law enforcement surge was playing out on the District’s streets and doggedly covered 

Her reporting on a change to U.S. Park Police's 

 caused two Democratic lawmakers to open an investigation and her coverage of federal agents shooting at drivers during traffic stops was referenced as the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation requiring the city police department to release body-camera footage when a local officer witnesses a federal officer shoot someone.

“Emma is a rare talent – a brilliant, passionate, high-energy journalist,” said Annie Rees, Senior Executive Producer of City Cast DC. “With Emma as a reporter, City Cast DC will evolve into the city’s most indispensable – and most fun – place to find local coverage. We look forward to announcing the other reporters who will join Emma in the coming days.”

Hoosier born-and-raised, Emma graduated from Indiana University, where she earned degrees in journalism and international studies. Prior to moving to D.C. and joining the Washington Post in 2024, she covered breaking news at the Tampa Bay Times, interned with Indianapolis Monthly magazine, and worked with the national investigative team at USA Today.

Michael Schaffer Joins City Cast as Executive Editor 

Michael Schaffer is joining City Cast DC full-time as a host and executive editor as the national podcast network begins staffing a local Washington newsroom to complement and expand its daily audio and newsletter offerings.

A D.C. native and former editor-in-chief of both Washington City Paper and Washingtonian magazine, Schaffer is one of the most experienced editors and writers in local Washington. During his eight years at Washingtonian, the magazine was twice judged America’s best big-city magazine. He most recently wrote the Capital City column in Politico.

A co-host of City Cast DC since its 2022 launch, he’s developed a reputation with listeners for a deep knowledge of the city, an ability to find humor in the city’s quirks, and a willingness to ask probing questions of political leaders and fellow journalists alike.

Schaffer’s hire comes as City Cast, a nationwide network of local podcasts, is in the midst of an expansion in D.C., with plans to hire a staff of local journalists to focus on robust coverage of city politics, regional business, local culture, as well as the personalities and institutions that make the city tick.

In his new role, Schaffer will continue to anchor City Cast DC’s flagship daily podcast alongside co-host Bridget Todd. He’ll also help shape City Cast DC’s new team of reporters and produce his own column about his hometown at a moment of radical disruption.

Schaffer arrives as City Cast undergoes an unprecedented expansion of its local newsroom, hiring a team of journalists to create original reporting about the D.C. area. The new journalists will enable City Cast DC to roll out additional newsletters, podcasts, articles, and social offerings.

“As he's proved time and time again in the past 30 years, Michael Schaffer is the smartest, most insightful, and funniest observer of local Washington,” said City Cast CEO David Plotz. “He can do it all: Podcast! Report! Write! Edit! With Michael as our Executive Editor, City Cast DC is going to be the city’s must-listen and must-read.”

City Cast is a network of daily local news podcasts and newsletters in 13 cities around the country, covering news, culture, and things to do in your community. Owned by Graham Holdings Co. in Arlington, VA, City Cast aims to be the smartest, easiest way to connect with the place you live and love.

City Cast DC is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its local newsroom, hiring a team of journalists to create original reporting about the D.C. area. 

Kaela Cote-Stemmermann Is City Cast DC’s New Food and Culture Reporter

News and updates about the City Cast DC podcast and Hey DC newsletter.

City Cast DC Announcements

Announcements

Days before Jeffery Carroll was sworn in as the interim D.C. police chief in January, his soon-to-be second-in-command Andre Wright sent

an AI-generated video to his wife. The video, according to an internal report, showed Carroll puffing on a cigar and laughing while crowing, “The wicked witch is dead bitches. There’s a new sheriff in town.”

The message, sent from Wright’s department-issued cellphone, came amid the dramatic departure of former Chief Pamela Smith, who elevated Wright through the ranks and put him in charge of all of the department’s patrol operations. Wright and his wife, Inspector Natasha Wright, were among the 13 officials served termination papers last week in connection to the crime statistics scandal – but they had already been put on administrative leave months earlier, in March, for inappropriate text messages found on Wright’s work phone.

I reviewed an 18-page internal affairs synopsis of the investigation into Wright’s text messages with his wife, who works in the police department’s human resources department. The report shows that Wright repeatedly questioned crime classifications, solicited sex acts and derided colleagues and subordinates.

In one message, seemingly during a 9 a.m. meeting, Wright texted his wife, “This Big Tittie bitch can’t read.” In another, he appeared to reference a work trip as he wrote, “I’m going out of town with a fat ugly bitch, will be back tomorrow," followed by “I’m taking two midgets with me.” And

after a March 2025 shooting in which a man had been shot in the leg, Wright texted his wife to “make sure this stupid mother fucka didn’t shoot himself and is lying.”

The D.C. police department is in turmoil over a 554-page report outlining a pattern of manipulating data in ways that falsely made the city look safer. 

 and Congress and the Justice Department are investigating. The officials are all on administrative leave pending the results of the department's disciplinary process, during which they can appeal the decision.

But the text messages represent a different outrage — and one that, beyond its prurience, reveals a lot about the police department. A search of Wright’s phone as part of the crime statistics investigation yielded messages that suggest the department's issues extend beyond data classification. Rather than a coordinated conspiracy, the messages make clear that the police brass accused of manipulation are at war with one another as well.

The texts are also a stark departure from the preaching persona Wright has built for himself as de-facto second-in-command of the department. At Smith’s farewell ceremony in December, Wright delivered a speech comparing their relationship to Paul and Timothy's in the Bible. He at times preached or prayed during D.C. police meetings, according to three law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private matters. But in light of surfaced messages, as one official put it, his conduct seems like “striking hypocrisy.”

“To hear the sanctimoniousness from Chief Wright and Natasha Wright who were at best unprofessional and at worst downright scandalous… it’s just remarkable,” said Pamela Keith, an attorney for a captain accused of crime data manipulation. “It’s indicative of a complete absence of moral compass.”

Andre and Natasha Wright did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A D.C. police spokesperson said the Wrights are on administrative leave, but cited pending internal matters and declined to answer further questions, including whether Wright’s messages were indicative of the police department’s culture.

D.C. police also declined to answer why the report is dated January 14, 2026, but the Wrights were not placed on leave until March.

Some of Wright’s messages discovered in January are also referenced in the 554-page internal affairs report on crime data manipulation 

. While investigators found that there was no evidence that Wright “specifically directed the misclassification of crimes on a large scale,” they pointed to some messages included in the January report to assert that “he was aware of, and supported, the practice.”

In one message, he sent his wife a screenshot of a section of the D.C. Code detailing the elements necessary to classify a crime as taking property without a right – a category investigators found was frequently abused to lower the number of reported thefts.

In another message, he reminded Natasha to ask a captain in the department about the classification. About a half-hour later, he texted her to follow up: “Have you been practicing? Did you reclassify that Theft?”

The internal investigations come after months of heightened scrutiny from President Donald Trump. Last summer, Trump took over the D.C. police force and cited out of control crime as justification. Critics pointed to the city’s plummeting crime rates, but Trump seized on long-circulated rumors that some police department managers regularly downgraded crime classifications to avoid being reprimanded by top brass.

The Justice Department and the House Oversight Committee conducted investigations, both of which railed against the leadership style of Smith and many of her inner circle. However, neither of the investigations identified a time when Smith or another leader explicitly ordered the misclassification of crime. Smith has denied wrongdoing.

This is not the first time Wright has found himself embroiled in controversy. In 2021, his ex-wife reported he was having an affair with a subordinate lieutenant: Natasha, his current wife. And former D.C. Police Sgt. Charlotte Djossou, who recently self-published a book about the “narcissistic culture” within the department, 

that she had a “consensual sexual relationship” (including threesomes) with Wright while he was her superior and still married to his first wife.

The report shows Wright sent Natasha two links to Djossou’s Instagram profile on Dec. 13, 2025, the same day the 21-year veteran of the department posted about a TV interview she did alleging department leadership had been cooking the books for years. Djossou filed a whistleblower lawsuit in 2020 alleging the department retaliated against her for speaking up, and the lawsuit was settled last year.

Wright also sent his wife links to a court filing and news articles about the ongoing lawsuit brought against the police department by Capt. Paul Hrebenak, who alleges that Wright and other senior leaders retaliated against him for taking parental leave as a gay man.

The Wrights also seemed to hold particular disdain for certain D.C. police leaders, including Cmdr. Michael Pulliam and Capt. Rachel Pulliam, who were also named in the crime data investigation.

Michael Pulliam was the first D.C. police official to be placed on administrative leave for allegedly downgrading crimes in May 2025. And both he and his wife were among the 13 officials served termination papers last week. In a lawsuit earlier this year, the couple claimed they are facing retaliation for pushing back against Smith and her inner circle, including Wright.

The month before Michael Pulliam’s suspension, Rachel Pulliam was abruptly transferred from the Youth and Family Engagement Division to midnights in the 7th District. She said this happened after she pushed back against then-chief Smith’s directive to rescind some detectives' approved time off.

Rachel Pulliam filed a whistleblower complaint, then Wright ordered Michael Pulliam to pack up her office. That prompted Michael Pulliam to file an equal employment opportunity complaint against Wright. A week later, he was put on leave.

Text messages surfaced in the January investigation show that Wright sent a photo of Michael Pulliam and other officials with the message, “He looks broken,” and, “He is fucked” on April 30 – the same week Pulliam filed a complain against Wright. Natasha responded with two laughing crying emojis.

In August, the report shows Natasha texted, “I just saw that liar Rachel.” The Wrights discussed seeing Rachel Pulliam with another police official, then said they pulled his internal investigation log numbers and “snitched” on him.

“They are royalty to the white boys… they all believe that we are in their way,” Wright texted.

Rachel Pulliam said seeing the texts was difficult, but also validated her feelings that she was being watched by the head of human resources and assistant chief.

“I felt the retaliation, I felt the hostility,” she said. “I felt like I was being gaslit into thinking that this wasn’t happening. And to see those text messages on a department phone so boldly targeting my husband and I after I made these protected disclosures… it was emotional.”

She said she was particularly disturbed by the fact that they appeared to open an investigation into a captain for speaking with her.

“That scares me because it sends this message to the rest of the department that not only should you not stand up for what’s right, but it might not just be your job, it could be everyone else’s around you.”

The most frequently discussed topic in the messages from the report by far – more than crime classifications, colleagues or Carroll – was sex.

In messages to his wife, Wright requests oral and anal sex, sends her old pictures of him and asks if she would have sex with “young Andre” and tells her she owes him “ghetto pussy” for shoveling snow out of two parking spaces.

Some of the messages become bizarre – a link to an Instagram video titled, “POV - You’re a Sassy Gay Recruit in the Academy Getting Pepper Sprayed,” and “Come suck on my toes, individually!!!!”

I would wager it’s the first time in D.C. police history that an internal affairs report has included a footnote explaining the term WAP.

An internal report shows ex-executive assistant chief Andre Wright repeatedly sent crude texts and mocked colleagues.

Inside the NSFW text messages that got a top D.C. police official put on leave

"Downright scandalous:" Inside the NSFW text messages that got a top D.C. police official put on leave

With Congress demanding internal documents and the police union gloating about the proposed sacking of 13 top officials, interim police chief

Jeffery Carroll met the press Tuesday, a day after he moved to clean house over manipulated crime data.

It made for quite a spectacle in a department that in recent years has faced leadership turnover and intensified federal scrutiny. Carroll opened by confirming the rumors: All 13 of the proposed firings are related to an internal investigation into crime data manipulation, he said.

He confirmed the restructuring of the department began yesterday with the shuttering of an office formerly led by the department’s second-in-command, as well as a series of transfers and promotions to fill the positions of officials under investigation. 

After news of the pending firings first broke in the Washington Post, I was the 

first to report the details of the department’s restructuring

 after obtaining internal communications sent Monday evening. The officials are all on administrative leave pending the results of the department's “trial board” disciplinary process, where they can appeal the decision.

But Carroll refused to disclose the findings of the internal investigation, citing personnel matters. That transparency seems pretty essential given that the alleged manipulation of crime statistics cuts to the basic question of whether Carroll’s department is trustworthy – and could serve as further reason for President Donald Trump to seize control in the District. Trump has zeroed in on long-standing complaints about crime misclassification, using it to justify his takeover of the D.C. police department and declaration of a crime emergency last summer even as D.C. crime rates fell.

Carroll also declined to answer why he was moving to dismiss top officers when even scathing Justice Department and House Oversight Committee reports haven’t actually identified any case of top brass ordering underclassification of crimes. (Those reports merely cited an overall toxic culture as the culprit for inaccurate stats).

And when asked whether D.C. police have heeded Republican Rep. James Comer’s 

public demands to hand over the investigation

, Carroll was vague, saying he is “in communication" with the House Oversight Committee chairman about the request.

But he was clear on one point: crime is still down in the District.

Jeffery Carroll also confirmed the restructuring of the department. 

Police Chief: 13 Top Officials Face Termination Amid Crime Stats Scandal 

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