Fatal Attacks Against Police Officers: A Trend Analysis

[XLFD]

This week, after a final pre-trial hearing for Lowell Fetters, an alleged shooter in a domestic dispute, the Chief of Police for Ludington, Mark, Barnett said:  "In light of last week's events, it's apparent that the shooting of a police officer is too prevalent.  This town has had its fill of it — I know my department has."

Over the last twenty months two law enforcement officers in Mason County have been shot.  In 2012, Ludington police were sent to a domestic dispute involving Mr. Fetters, somehow the scene escalated leading to the shooting of a Ludington officer.  Luckily, it was non-fatal.  This month, the Michigan State Trooper making a seemingly routine traffic stop in the east part of the county was not so lucky, getting shot in the head presumably by a young man with some serious issues with the law. 

 

Coupled with some of the other local high profile abductions (by Sean Phillips, Mark McCallum) and other murders (by Patrick Bentley, James Belanger, etc.) just in Mason County, one could easily make the logical leap that it is incredibly dangerous for police officers nowadays, and only getting worse, as Chief Barnett intimates.  But that would be a fallacy. 

 

In fact, in the United States in 2012, the amount of Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs), which includes the local police all the way up to the FBI, that were killed in the line of duty was never less until you go back to the 1950s!  See the chart.  The 120 officers killed last year were a positive trend that has been continuing back to 9-11-2001 and before, as we will soon see.

 

If you can remember just a couple years back, LEO organizations with their allies in big media were making the case that there was a "war on cops" that justified more funding, gun control efforts, and further paramilitary training.  This mantra stills finds its users in situations where there has been a tragedy, but the raw statistics just don't back it up.  The pundits with an agenda blame budget shortfalls, anti-government sentiment, gun ownership and other causes for the rising violence against police...

 

But to do so they look at the statistics narrowly, and ignore the bigger picture.  After making major claims in 2011, the last two years they have ignored what happened last year and what is happening this year in their further reporting.  And even though last year was the lowest fatality numbers for LEOs since 1959, this year looks to be even safer for them.  As of 9-18-2013, eleven less LEOs have been killed than at the same time.  More impressive is that firearms related deaths are down 30%, ten less than last year.

 

And lets look at the historical implication of today's number of fatalities compared with past eras.  Perhaps the most dangerous time ever to be a police officer in America was back during the prohibition era, as "revenuers" ran the risk of ambush for finding illegal stills (feel free to draw an analogy with the present criminalization of drugs that were used back in the 'prohibition era' such as marijuana and cocaine with less sanctions). 

 

The chart on the side has a year, and the amount of LEOs killed in the line of duty those years.  As you can see, every year had over 190 LEO deaths with an average over these years of just over 240, and 3604 deaths total.  Those years could perhaps claim the mantle for having a "war on cops", and there was a whole lot fewer LEOs and regular people for that matter.  

 

If we consider the population of the US in 1930 was about 123 million, and over 310 million now, one would expect about 700 LEO deaths nowadays if the trend continued, but it's about 1/6 of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The civil unrest issues of the 1960's didn't really start to show up on the stats until the middle of the decade, when it carried through the end of Vietnam, Watergate, and Jimmy Carter, subsiding some after the advent of Reagan.

 

Once again, the annual numbers never dipped below 190, however, it was a bit less bloody period than prohibition, with 3285 deaths over the 15 years total, and an average of 219 deaths per year.  Interestingly, since 1981 the number of deaths of LEOs have always been below 200, except for the 240 that died in 2001, a direct consequence of the 60 LEOs killed on 9-11. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Which brings us to our last 15 years, where the actual amount of police officers in the US is over 1.1 million in 2008, over 5% more than in 2004, since 1992 that growth rate is 25%, a bit higher than our population growth rate.  Yet with more officers on the street, more people on the street, the numbers are considerably less than the prohibition and Vietnam era as regards fatalities. 

 

In these last 15 years, most of them post-911, there have been 2354 total deaths to LEOs in the line of duty, which averages out to 156 per year (152 if you factor out 9-11 as 'special').  So back in 1930, we had over 60% less people, but had more than 60% more cop-killings.  As stated, if you were a LEO, you were 6 times more likely to get killed in 1930 than you were in 2012, and around 3.5 times less likely from 1974. 

 

Granted, the death of one law enforcer doing his job is one too many, but despite the crooks being portrayed as more violent and sophisticated, the streets being somehow less safe, it has never been less dangerous to be a cop, and its only trending downward.

 For more statistical info: 

NLEO Memorial

Officer Down Memorial Page

 

[Johnny]

I guess I don't see how ODMP is entertaining Sh*t, S Todd.  You  make it seem like that most of the officers that died while on the job have had heart attacks or not wearing their seat belt. After visiting the site, it was very hard to find a lot of officers who had heart attacks or ones that weren't wearing their seat belts.  Its funny to read comments by people like S Todd who want to run their mouth and act tough with LE officers and then when he needs help he will be calling for the police to help him.  You claim you "researched" the ODMP and you list ONE death of an officer who died not wearing a seat belt assisting another agency and then list heart attack.  I could list 50 officers shot, killed in an accident going to a call to help a citizen or an officer going after a suspect.  But S Todd wants to point out 2 deaths and claims they were entertaining.  What the heck is wrong with you?  Do you have something against LE due to you being a trouble maker?  Then you want to bring up again that you get a chuckle about the MSP slogan and bring up the procession to Manistee the officers did?  I still don't see how the endangered lives.  Were they going 95mph in and out of traffic?  Or were they going like 45 mph with their lights on in a single row?  I'm not sure i see the danger you try speaking of.