Murder, rape and robbery are declining in spite of police layoffs in Flint, Mich. — according to the most recent official report released by the State Police. Those and other reported “index” crimes were down 11.5 percent overall during the first six months of this year, compared with the same six-month period last year. 
 
 We’ve continued to dig into the statistics for crime-ridden Flint because we caught Vice President Joe Biden misrepresenting them repeatedly as he argued for passage of the administration’s jobs legislation. Republicans accused the vice president of fear-mongering, as he toured the country warning that there would be more rapes, murders, robberies and other crimes without fresh federal funds to help localities like Flint avoid further layoffs of police. 
 
 Speaking in Flint on Oct. 12, Biden said murder and rape statistics skyrocketed in that city from 2008 to 2010 (even though, as we reported, FBI data show rapes in Flint declined during that period). Biden then added: “God only knows what the numbers will be this year in Flint.” Actually the Michigan State Police know, for at least the first six months of the year, because the city is required to report instances of crime. And rather than supporting Biden’s argument, the evidence we found undercuts it. 
 
 
 
 All four categories of violent crime are down this year in Flint, according to the State Police. Reported murders are down 30 percent; reported rapes are down 18 percent. Robberies dropped 17 percent, and aggravated assaults declined 20 percent. These are figures tabulated by Michigan State Police from reports that local officials are required to make under state law. They are “preliminary” and subject to possible revisions, but they reflect reports received as of Sept. 6. 
 
 A similar pattern emerges for major crimes against property. Of the four categories given by State Police, three went down, and the only increase was in theft of motor vehicles. 
 
 Motor vehicle theft was up 40 percent (after a 26 percent decline between 2008 and 2010). But larceny dropped 18 percent; burglary declined 8 percent; and arson plunged 42 percent (after a huge 138 percent rise the previous two years). 
 
 Flint officials have told us that they gave the vice president the crime statistics he cited in his Oct. 12 speech in the city. They also say there were actually more murders in Flint in 2010 than the city reported to the FBI, due to an “internal clerical error.” But Biden later embellished and exaggerated the Flint numbers egregiously. And he ignored the recent decline in crime reports we mention here. 
 
 Biden focused on the change between 2008 and 2010. We find that Flint officials have yet to correct whatever errors may have been made in reporting their 2010 murder figure, either in tabulations by the FBI or the Michigan State Police. Had the city corrected the 2010 figure, the decline for the first six months of 2011 would probably be much larger, unless another error has resulted in under-reporting murders for the current year. But even disregarding the disputed murder figures, Biden’s claims about what happened between 2008 and 2010 are contradicted both by the FBI and Michigan State Police numbers. 
 
 In Flint, Biden said that the number of murders from 2008 to 2010 in that city climbed from 35 to 65 and rapes jumped from 91 to 229. He embellished upon those figures during a visit to the University of Pennsylvania six days later, claiming that Flint’s murder rate had nearly tripled and “the number of rapes have quadrupled.” 
 
 But the figures tabulated by Michigan State Police tell a different story. 
 
 Murder was up 66 percent, according to State Police figures, and 106 percent according to what Flint officials now say. Biden was clearly incorrect in saying that murders were “close to triple.” There was, however, a sharp increase in murder, so that bit of evidence would support Biden’s main point that reducing police staffing leads to increased crime. 
 
 But leaving that aside, the official statistics show rape was in fact down, no matter how it’s measured. Michigan State Police figures show a 9.8 percent reduction. FBI data show an 11 percent decline. (There is a slight difference in the definitions of rape. Both agencies consider rape for reporting purposes as forced sexual penetration between a male and female, but the FBI does not include male victims and the state does.) 
 
 Biden claimed rapes in Flint were up from 91 in 2008 to 229 in 2010, an increase of 152 percent, during his visit to the city. How could he have been so wrong? City spokeswoman Dawn Jones told us the city had supplied Biden with 2010 figures for “rape” that actually reflected all crimes involving “criminal sexual conduct.” We surmise that Biden was comparing 2008 figures for “rape” with 2010 figures for the much broader category of “criminal sexual conduct,” which includes forcible rape plus forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object, and forcible “fondling.” But when a proper apples-to-apples comparison is made, the broader category of “criminal sexual conduct” (CSC) is also down. State Police figures show a 10 percent reduction in total CSC reports between 2008 (242) and 2010 (217). 
 
 The city issued a statement Oct. 20 that said it “stands behind the crime statistics provided to the Office of The Vice President.” However, Jones told us she could not say if the 2008 and 2010 rape numbers the city supplied Biden were comparable because there had been a change of administrations during that time. She promised to provide more information, but said “it is going to take further work on our end to determine how another administration categorized and recorded crime data.” We, however, found the information readily available on state websites. 
 
 As for property crimes, the statistics from 2008 to 2010 are mixed. Some State Police figures on property crimes support Biden’s thesis: Burglary was up 9 percent, and arson more than doubled. It was up 138 percent. 
 
 On the other hand, State Police figures show that both larceny and motor vehicle theft plunged 27 percent during the period, despite the police layoffs. 
 
 So, even if Biden had consistently recited the figures Flint officials say they gave to him, he was cherry-picking and — regarding rape — comparing apples to fruit salad. 
 
 As we wrote earlier, we are not minimizing the crime problem in Flint. It is real. And we are not taking sides in the long-running discussion among criminologists about what effect police staffing levels have on crime. But the vice president misrepresented the extent of the city’s crime problem — flagrantly so, in the case of rapes. He also ignored the fact that crime this year is down, based on the city’s own crime figures, despite cuts in the police force and in direct contradiction with his larger point that Flint’s staffing cuts resulted in rising crime. 
 
 — Eugene Kiely and Brooks Jackson ||||| Joe Biden Joseph (Joe) Robinette BidenShould Mike Pompeo be confirmed? FBI raid on Trump’s attorney is so political, it would have made J. Edgar Hoover blush Why Smokin' Joe leads the pack of 2020 Democratic hopefuls MORE’s office has complained to the Senate press gallery about a confrontation the vice president had with a conservative journalist last week on Capitol Hill. 
 
 Biden aides asked whether Senate rules were broken in the wake of the contentious exchange between the vice president and the reporter. 
 
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 Jason Mattera, who works for Human Events, a conservative magazine, used a pretext to catch Biden off guard in a Senate hallway and grill him on claims the vice president has made about jobs legislation. 
 
 Biden’s office has also contacted the standing committee of correspondents, which oversees the gallery, regarding whether Mattera broke the rules by ambushing him. 
 
 Heather Rothman, the chairwoman of the gallery’s standing committee, said the matter is under review. 
 
 “We’re aware of the concerns,” said Rothman, a reporter for BNA. “It’s being discussed. 
 
 “We’re aware this occurred and the vice president’s office [has made] contact,” she added, noting the standing committee itself hasn’t met to deliberate the issue. 
 
 The video of Wednesday’s exchange went viral, as news outlets and the Drudge Report highlighted Biden’s comment to Mattera: “Don’t screw around with me.” 
 
 CNN aired a segment — including footage of the incident — the same afternoon, and a YouTube clip of the interview has already attracted more than 380,000 views. 
 
 Biden had just left a rousing rally where Democratic leaders said Republican opposition to federal funding for police and firefighters threatened public safety. But the cable news coverage focused on the dust-up between Biden and Mattera. 
 
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 Biden’s visible irritation might be explained by how he was lured into the short interview. 
 
 As the vice president left the Russell caucus room, Mattera weaved his way through the entourage, shook Biden’s hand and asked him to pose for a photo. While shaking Biden’s hand, Mattera asked him if he felt “regret using a rape reference to describe Republican opposition to the president’s bill.” 
 
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 Biden looked momentarily frozen as what he thought was a friendly gesture turned into a pointed line of tough questions from a conservative interlocutor. Biden had just signed an autograph for an admirer and still had the pen in his hand, according to a source familiar with the incident. 
 
 “I didn’t use — no, no, no,” Biden said, furrowing his brow and shaking his finger at the reporter. “What I said — let’s get it straight, guy, don’t screw around with me. Let’s get it straight. 
 
 “I said rape was up three times in Flint, [Mich.]. There are the numbers. Go look at the numbers. Murder’s up, rape is up and burglary’s up. That’s exactly what I said,” Biden added. 
 
 After initially balking at the questions, Biden stood by his argument that if Republicans continue to block the Democratic jobs bill, “murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise.” 
 
 The Washington Post’s fact-checker ripped Biden’s claims over the weekend, giving the vice president “four Pinocchios” and writing that he “should know better than to spout off half-baked facts in service of a dubious argument.” 
 
 The Senate periodical press gallery and a spokeswoman for Biden declined to comment for this article. 
 
 Mattera admits to using a pretext to momentarily disarm Biden, but argues his methods were justified. 
 
 “ABC and CBS have done undercover sting operations and have done them for decades. The fact that a conservative publication goes after a public official who was misrepresenting himself and a Senate bill to the public and tries to get an answer from him, that’s great,” he said in an interview Monday. 
 
 “The media should take notice that this is how you ask a question. If I had said, ‘Hey, Mr. Vice President, a question regarding your rape comments,’ he would shrug it off. 
 
 “He’s not going to take questions hostile to his agenda. I want to get him in that honest moment when he doesn’t have his talking points and isn’t prepared to spin,” Mattera added. 
 
 Mattera said his technique is “premised on looking to get the most honest reaction from politicians used to conning the media daily — and even their constituents.” 
 
 “You shouldn’t play patty-cake with politicians to gain access,” he said. 
 
 He said his request for a photo wasn’t a fabrication because someone had volunteered to snap his picture with the vice president, and noted in a follow-up email that he was wearing his press credentials. 
 
 This is not the first time Mattera has confronted a high-profile politician. 
 
 Mattera approached Sen. Al Franken Alan (Al) Stuart FrankenWhy Smokin' Joe leads the pack of 2020 Democratic hopefuls Pawlenty to announce bid for Minnesota governor Al Franken: Sessions firing McCabe ‘is hypocrisy at its worst’ MORE (D-Minn.) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building last year after an event and told him, “I appreciate your remarks in there. You were awesome.” 
 
 Then he started peppering Franken over $7 billion in the 2010 healthcare reform bill for creating healthier school environments and repeatedly cut off his replies with follow-up questions, even referring to him as “Senator Smalley,” a reference to a character Franken once played on “Saturday Night Live.” 
 
 Franken snapped: “You have to shut up right now and listen to me instead of interrupting me every time I say something.” 
 
 Jill Geisler, an expert in journalistic ethics at the Poynter Institute, said pretexts can be used to report stories, but only as a last resort. 
 
 “Critics and ethicists who have criticized ambush interviews have said it should be a last resort done not for drama but because other means for obtaining information have been unsuccessful,” Geisler said. “The whole question of honesty is something journalists should take quite seriously, including how they represent themselves.” 
 
 Geisler said a clear-cut case where using a pretext would be appropriate would be if a journalist had solid reason to believe patients at a mental hospital were being abused but had no way to gain access to the scene without dissembling. 
 
 
 
 ||||| Vice President Joe Biden now says he didn’t make a reference to rape, and got testy with HUMAN EVENTS when we asked if he would like to retract his comments that the number of sexual assaults would increase if Republicans don’t sign on to Barack Obama’s latest “jobs” proposal. 
 
 
 
 “I didn’t use, no no no…Let’s get it straight, guy. Don’t screw around with me,” Biden lashed out at HUMAN EVENTS. Then Biden confirmed that he indeed did talk about rape in terms of the President’s spending measure. “Murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise,” if the Democrats agenda isn’t passed, he added. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 It was on Tuesday during a speech at the University of Pennsylvania where Biden argued that another round of government spending was needed to prevent sexual assaults. “It’s not temporary [administration’s proposed stimulus] when that 911 call comes in and a woman’s being raped, if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape. It’s not temporary to that woman.” Then in the same speech he wished Republicans were themselves rape victims. “I wish they had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit.” 
 
 
 
 Biden’s demagogic language aside, police budgets are the responsibility of each individual state, not federal bureaucrats. And as Ed Morrissey at HotAir notes, the President’s “jobs” bill doesn’t go directly to hire police officers anyway. Instead, “it allows states to paper-over budget gaps for another year rather than address their systemic budgetary issues, and protect unionized bureaucrats whose jobs should be on the chopping block.” 
 
 
 
 The exchange between the vice president and HUMAN EVENTS was taken on Wednesday after Biden gave a speech calling for yet another government stimulus program. This one is union-backed, and aimed at getting teachers and public-sector employees back to work.
– Joe Biden is not happy about the ambush interview that landed him on cable TV—and he’s letting the press gallery’s standing committee of correspondents know about it. Jason Mattera of the conservative blog Human Events caught Biden off guard last week by asking to take a photo with him while Biden was signing autographs. Then Mattera hit him with questions about factually dubious statements he’d made recently connecting rape in Flint, Michigan, to rising unemployment. “Let’s get this straight guy, don’t screw around with me,” Biden told Mattera. “I said rape was up three times in Flint,” and if the jobs bill isn’t passed “all crimes will continue to rise.” (Of course, FactCheck.org found that crime rates are actually down in Flint.) Now, Biden’s asking the correspondents committee if Mattera broke any rules by springing the questions on him, the Hill reports. Mattera, however, is unapologetic. “You shouldn’t play patty-cake with politicians to gain access,” he says.