More than 5,300 violent assaults have been misreported since 2006, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn told a Common Council committee Thursday.
An internal department audit shows that 20% of aggravated assaults were underreported as lesser offenses that didn't get counted in the city's violent crime rate during that time.
That echoes the findings of a Journal Sentinel investigation last month of a more-limited pool of cases that identified in excess of 500 misreported serious assaults over a three-year period and another 800 cases that fit the same pattern.
The department's review suggests the problem is much deeper than had been reported and has existed for a longer period, including before Flynn's tenure began in 2008.
Flynn said the assault coding errors identified by the department will be sent to the FBI for revision, which will place the city's overall crime rate higher than previously reported.
The department's review also determined that almost 1,200 minor assaults were over-reported as aggravated assaults during the past six years, resulting in a net gain of 4,131 in the more serious assault category. Over-reporting means those cases should have been classified as lesser crimes, Flynn said.
Flynn and other police officials speaking Thursday said that despite thousands of crime coding errors in both directions, their review showed violent crime is still down by double digits - a 25% decrease since 2007.
