On last night’s CBS Evening News, a bias by omission twofer via Justice Correspondent Scott MacFarlane. In addition to airing citations of the well-debunked D.C. crime statistics MacFarlane omitted key details of an arrest in Northwest D.C., all in service of furthering narratives adversarial to the federal takeover of D.C. police.
Watch as MacFarlane serves up the cooked data with no fact-check or mention of the local police commander suspended for altering statistics:
SCOTT MacFARLANE: The number of National Guard troops on the streets and in the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. is poised to more than double. The Republican governors have at least a half dozen states have deployed hundreds more. West Virginia governor Patrick Morrissey saying he wants to help restore cleanliness and safety in the nation's capital.
MURIEL BOWSER: This doesn’t make sense. You know it doesn’t make sense.
MacFARLANE: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says the sight of troops policing U.S. citizens on U.S. soil is un-American, and unwarranted with violent crime down 26% this year.
BOWSER: The numbers on the ground in the District don't support 1,000 people from other states coming to Washington, D.C.
MacFARLANE: President Trump touted the second week of his takeover of D.C. police in deployment of hundreds of federal agents.
DONALD TRUMP: People that haven’t gone out to dinner in Washington, D.C. in two years are going out to dinner.
The manipulation of crime data often cited as Gospel Truth is a matter of public record, and yet so many in the legacy media continue to pretend that this story either does not exist or is not relevant to the federal takeover of Metro Police. Per NBC4:
A D.C. police commander is under investigation for allegedly making changes to crime statistics in his district.
The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Michael Pulliam was placed on paid administrative leave in mid-May. That happened just a week after Pulliam filed an equal employment opportunity complaint against an assistant chief and the police union accused the department of deliberately falsifying crime data, according to three law enforcement sources familiar with the complaint.
MacFarlane ran two soundbites from Mayor Muriel Bowser and cited the data himself, never once referencing the suspension of the local commander. Instead, he pivots to a rebuttal of President Trump’s assertion about more people dining out in D.C. since the takeover.
As evidence of a downturn in dining, Scottie Mac cites OpenTable data suggesting bookings are down for that time period. It is unclear, though, how this correlates to the takeover. Who’s not attending the froufrou restaurants in the affluent corners of D.C.? Are criminals staying home in the wake of the crackdown, or are woke D.C. residents staying home in protest? MacFarlane’s second omission leans toward the latter.
MacFarlane presents video published by The Washington Post of a moped driver being brusquely detained by masked federal agents, one of which responded “liberals already did” to onlooker accusations of federal law enforcement “ruining this country”.
That was the end of that story as far as MacFarlane’s item was concerned but, as always, the devil is in the details. Per The Baltimore Sun:
Christian Enrique Carias Torres was detained by officers as the altercation was filmed outside a Bluestone Lane on 14th and R streets, according to Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, a reporter with The Washington Post, who took a video and posted it on the social media platform X.
The delivery driver was identified with a different name spelling, Cristian Enrique Carias Torres, a Venezuelan native who entered the U.S. in 2023, according to Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin.
McLaughlin said Carias Torres had a final order of removal from an immigration judge and multiple warrants in Maryland after failing to appear in court for traffic offenses.
The article goes on to note that one of the officers arresting the illegal alien wanted on multiple traffic offenses suffered a head injury and concussion as a result of the aforementioned illegal alien resisting his arrest. That’s an interesting omission from this Crime and Justice Correspondent.
There is a common thread running through both of these stories and related omissions. The legacy media, as embodied here by Scott MacFarlane, are far more concerned with covering the Trump administration’s response to years of decay, whether on the border or on crime in the nation’s capital, than on the decay itself.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Monday, August 18th, 2025:
JOHN DICKERSON: President Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C.'s, police force is intensifying. Today, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana became the latest Republican-led states to say they are sending National Guard troops. Scott MacFarlane reports now on the impact of the federal crackdown not only on crime in the capital, but business.
SCOTT MacFARLANE: The number of National Guard troops on the streets and in the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. is poised to more than double. The Republican governors have at least a half dozen states have deployed hundreds more. West Virginia governor Patrick Morrissey saying he wants to help restore cleanliness and safety in the nation's capital.
MURIEL BOWSER: This doesn’t make sense. You know it doesn’t make sense.
MacFARLANE: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says the sight of troops policing U.S. citizens on U.S. soil is un-American, and unwarranted with violent crime down 26% this year.
BOWSER: The numbers on the ground in the District don't support 1,000 people from other states coming to Washington, D.C.
MacFARLANE: President Trump touted the second week of his takeover of D.C. police in deployment of hundreds of federal agents.
DONALD TRUMP: People that haven’t gone out to dinner in Washington, D.C. in two years are going out to dinner. And the restaurants the last two days were busier than they’ve been in a long time.
MARK RUTSTEIN: It is absolutely not true.
MacFARLANE: Mark Rutstein says his Northwest D.C. bar has lost up to 75% of its business and says if these drops reported by restaurant industry website OpenTable continue, there will be trouble.
RUTSTEIN: You know, I'm not going to let it fail, but we will be at the bank asking for money.
MacFARLANE: In a video from The Washington Post this weekend, a masked federal agent helping make an arrest is questioned by onlookers…
ONLOOKER: You guys are ruining this country. You know that, right?
MacFARLANE: …and responded this way.
FEDERAL AGENT: Liberals already ruined it.
MacFARLANE: In Southeast D.C., Anthony Mohammed says the takeover does have some supporters here.
What do you think about having these extra bodies on the ground deployed?
ANTHONY MOHAMMED: You needed help, you cried for help, now you have the help, so now you can't dictate the way that the help helps you.
MacFARLANE: Some D.C. community leaders are blasting the deployment of the out-of-state National Guard troops by pointing to the conditions on the ground in those states. In 2022, Jackson, Mississippi had one of the highest homicide rates in the nation, John.
DICKERSON: All right. Scott MacFarlane in Washington. Thank you, Scott.
