As a career FBI agent of 23 years and now Deputy Director, this headline is an insult to law enforcement across the country and especially to the FBI. To claim that our numbers are fabricated is a disservice to the men and women of the FBI – both our law enforcement officers and our professional staff – who continue to work towards our mission and keep the American people safe. The statistics from this FBI are provided by trained professionals from the FBI Operations Divisions. This data comes from our field offices that partner with federal, state, and local law enforcement to deliver the largest decrease in violent crime in our nation’s history. The process behind how we collect these statistics has remained the same year after year.