Mystery continues to shroud the death of DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was shot multiple times in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington D.C on July 10th, 2016. The prevailing explanation suggested by the mainstream media, is that Seth Rich was the victim of a failed robbery.

After an extensive investigation, on June 13th, 2017, @Prohaskanation reported on the strong likelihood that NBC4 had misidentifed Mike Mueller, the only witness interviewed in Collins’ July 11th 2016 report on the death of Seth Rich.

After multiple discussions with NBC4 Washington, Pat Collins (@patcollins4) confirmed on June 15th, 2017, that the original report was in error. Yesterday, NBC4 Washington released a revised version of its original report, correctly identifying the name of its witness as Mark Mueller.

While NBC has now correctly reported on the identity of their witness, questions remain about the attribution of Seth Rich’s death to robbery, in the absence of any clear evidence of a robbery.

According to Mark Mueller’s account of events, he heard “two sharp gunshots” at 4:19am and suggested that Seth Rich was the victim of a “robbery gone bad.” It is important to note here, that since Mueller was not an eyewitness to the crime, his attribution of motive is supposition.

Mueller’s supposition, however, dovetailed with crime statistics for the Fifth District provided in the same NBC report:

At “police data shows,” NBC hyperlinks to (http://crimemap.dc.gov), a data amalgamation tool used by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to organize crime statistics by type and location. Using this same tool, and the same time period as NBC, a query on the Fifth District yields some different results:

For armed robbery with a gun in the Fifth District, the MPD data shows that, for the period from 1/1/2016 to 7/11/2016, the number of instances of armed robbery with a gun is slightly (2%) lower than what NBC claimed.

For armed robbery without a gun in the Fifth District, the MPD data shows that, for the period for the period from 1/1/2016 to 7/11/2016, the number of instances of armed robbery excluding a gun is 4% lower than what NBC claimed.

The MPD data also shows that the rate of armed robbery excluding a gun increased only 4% from the same period in the prior year, compared with the 8% year-over-year increase claimed in NBCs report.

The MPD data also shows that the rate of armed robbery with a gun increased only 10% from the same period in the prior year, compared with the 12% year-over-year increase claimed in NBCs report.

(Editor’s Note: Originally, this comparison was made running from 12/31/2015 to 6/11/2016; adjustment of the period to a start date of 1/1/2016 and an enddate of 7/11/2016 creates results more consistent with NBCs reporting.)

On each of these crime statistics, NBC is creating a picture of crime in the Fifth District that is greater than actual. While this might be attributable to a reclassification of crimes by MPD after NBCs report was written, there seems to be an inflation of crime statistics by other news outlets as well.

In a press conference hosted by Mayor Bowser on July 12th, 2016, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uciq4-PCcFc) the homicide of Seth Rich was discussed multiple times. At 33:03, an unidentified reporter asks Mayor Bowser:

“Mayor, related to the murder of Mr. Rich, what’s going on with the robberies with guns up over 20%?”

Mayor Bowser refers the question to MPD Chief Cathy Lanier, but not before adding:

“And actually, I don’t think anybody —you said Mr. Rich and robberies — it hasn’t been determined it was a — I mean, that’s not accurate…”

Chief Lanier then corrects the reporter:

“Robberies right now, compared to last year are not up. We are down almost 20% from December of last year.”

In her response, Chief Lanier also suggests that the rate of robberies with a gun may be even lower than the statistics suggest, stating: “Even if I have a BB gun, and I point it in your direction…that’s considered assault with a deadly weapon.”

Where are these reporters getting their crime data from? How did the unidentified reporter cite a 20% increase in robberies with guns, when according to Chief Lanier, the rate had actually decreased 20%?

Future reports will be forthcoming, as this story develops.