Study: US Police Fatalities Increase 43 Percent

[Elmore Furth]

Source: Associated Press

A nonprofit group in Washington says the number of police officers who have died in the line of duty is up 43 percent so far this year.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund released preliminary data Wednesday. It shows that 87 officers died in the line of duty between Jan. 1 and June 30. That's compared with 61 officers during the first six months of last year.

The deaths were spread across 36 states and Puerto Rico -- with California, Texas and Florida showing the most fatalities. Other states included Virginia and Maryland, where a state trooper was fatally shot June 11.

Among the causes of death were traffic accidents and shootings. If the trend continues, 2010 could become one of the deadliest years for U.S. police agencies in two decades.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/21/us/politics/AP-US-Fallen-Officers.html?_r=1&ref=news

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According to the 'Officer Down Memorial Page,' the number one cause of death was gunfire (32) with traffic accidents (24) being number two.

http://www.odmp.org/year.php

[SkyDaddy7]

1. Which of the two, gunfire or traffic accidents...

Are the greatest cause of the overall increase in police officer deaths?

How many police officers have died at the hands of right wing terrorist like the one in Oakland? (I know no one was killed in the Oakland incident but there have been several others)

How many have died due to retaliation from the increase of police brutality?


The sad fact is none of these questions will be considered. All that will happen is the police will use this as an excuse to further abuse their power by treating everyone as a potential cop killer even when the situation could not be further from this...Like tazzing an 86 year old lady lying in her bed!

[rfranklin]

2. But crime is supposed to go down as more get CCW permits...

this is truly a mystery.

[hack89]

3. It has

overall crime rates including all categories of violent crime are at historic lows.

How much of this increase is attributed to auto accidents and not guns?

[Nihil]

6. ... which obviously proves you need to introduce Concealed Driving permits ...

:hide:

[slackmaster]

8. I think stealth cars would be cool

:hi:

[slackmaster]

7. That is a Straw Man

And unless police are being shot by people with CCW permits, it's dishonest bullshit too.

[SunnySong]

10. Crime has gone down... quite a bit actually. nt

[old mark]

4. I am certain that none of these officers was killed by a person holding a

Concealed Carry License...Criminals don't get them.

Philly has officers shot frequently and has the most stringent anti-gun laws in PA...for those who obey the law!

Many violent criminals get illegal gun charges dismissed as part of a plea bargain for a reduced sentence...then get our of prison, steal more guns and kill someone else. It happened to a Philly police office in '08 - the trial is going on right now.

Don't forget - many police departments reduced the number of cops due to the economy...


Also, if you added all the accidents together-not just automobile accidents-I beileve that they would be well ahead of shootings...

mark

[Old Codger]

5. Misleading title

The number of law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty in 2009 was the lowest in 50 years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), which released its preliminary 2009 statistics last week. The fund, a non-profit group, reported that 125 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in 2009, down 6 percent from last year and the lowest number since 1959.


2009 was lowest in 50 years so the comparison is not really fair.

The rest of the story

http://govpro.com/public_safety/law/police-deaths-low-20100112/

[X_Digger]

9. Here are the FBI stats..

Officers feloniously killed
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/2008/feloniouslykilled.html

avg for the last ten years- 53

Officers accidentally killed
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/2008/accidentallykilled.html

avg for the last ten years- 74.6

There are many tables at the FBI site that break down by region, race, sex, weapon, etc. One interesting one is table 5, which breaks down by month. Some years, there are a lot in the first six months, other years there are more in the last half of the year. Point being, there doesn't seem to be a strong enough pattern to say with certainty that a spike in the first six months is likely to be followed by a spike in the second six months.

2008 saw quite a drop compared to the previous ten years, and we don't have the numbers (from the FBI) for 2009 yet, much less 2010.

We should have the 2009 numbers in October, according to the UCR's published schedule.

[SunnySong]

11. It's a bit of slight of hand and fearmongering,

Last years numbers were exceptionally low.

When you are dealing with such small and rare events it is easy to get fairly wild swings statically.

[UrbScotty]

12. Rest their souls.

:cry: