General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnyone know of a source for good stats on the number of police officers killed in the line of duty .
... versus the numbers of civilians who are erroneously killed by police?
Look, I respect that police officers are sometimes asked to put their lives on the line, but I'm getting a little tired of that argument being used as justification for whitewashing police misconduct. I'd be really interested to know what story the numbers tell. Can anybody direct me to any reliable sources for this kind of information?
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)FBI Releases 2012 Preliminary Statistics for Law Enforcement Officers Killed in the Line of Duty
Washington, D.C. May 13, 2013
FBI National Press Office (202) 324-3691
According to preliminary statistics released today by the FBI, 47 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2012. The total number of officers killed is 25 fewer than the 72 officers who died in 2011. By region, 22 officers were killed as a result of criminal acts that occurred in the South, eight officers in the West, six officers in the Northeast, five officers died due to incidents in the Midwest, and six officers were killed in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
By circumstance, 12 officers died from injuries inflicted while investigating suspicious persons or circumstances, eight who died were conducting traffic pursuits or stops, five were engaged in tactical situations, and five officers were killed as a result of ambushes (four due to entrapment/premeditated situations and one during an unprovoked attack). Four officers deaths occurred as a result of answering disturbance calls (two of which were domestic disturbance calls) and three officers were transporting, handling, or maintaining custody of prisoners. Two of the fallen officers sustained fatal injuries during drug-related matters, two were attempting to make other arrests, and two were performing investigative activities. Two officers were responding to robberies in progress, one was responding to a burglary in progress, and one officer was killed as a result of handling a person with a mental illness.
Offenders used firearms in 43 of the 47 felonious deaths. These included 30 incidents with handguns, seven incidents with rifles, and three incidents with shotguns. The type of firearm was not reported in three of the incidents. Two victim officers were killed with vehicles used as weapons; one was killed with a knife; and one officer died from injuries inflicted with personal weapons, such as hands, fists, or feet.
Twenty of the slain officers were wearing body armor at the times of the incidents. Six of the officers fired their own weapons and two officers attempted to fire their service weapons. Three victim officers had their weapons stolen; however, none of the officers were killed with their own weapons.
The 47 victim officers died from injuries sustained in 44 separate incidents. Forty-two of those incidents have been cleared by arrest or exceptional means.
An additional 45 officers were accidentally killed in the line of duty in 2012. This total represents eight fewer officers who died in accidents when compared with the 53 officers who were accidentally killed during the same time period in 2011. By region, 27 officers died due to accidents in the South, eight in the Northeast, seven in the West, and three in the Midwest.
Of the officers who died as a result of accidents, 22 died due to automobile accidents, 10 were struck by vehicles, and six officers were in motorcycle accidents. Three of the officers were killed due to aircraft accidents, two in accidental shootings, one from a fall, and one officer died as a result of an ATV accident.
Final statistics and complete details will be available in the Uniform Crime Reporting Programs publication, Law Enforcement
http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2012-preliminary-statistics-for-law-enforcement-officers-killed-in-the-line-of-duty
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)Alan Maimon© 2011, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
The nation's leading law enforcement agency collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force. In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life.
"We don't have a mandate to do that," said William Carr, an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C. "It would take a request from Congress for us to collect that data."
In addition, the agency tracks the total annual number of "justifiable homicides," acts it defines as "the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty," but that only covers people shot while committing a serious crime and the data aren't broken down by agency. In 2010, that number was 387, down from 414 the year before.
The American Civil Liberties Union said police aren't required to publicly report officer-involved shooting information to anyone, but recently a judge ordered the New York Police Department to release that information to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The NYPD fought disclosure, arguing it would violate the privacy of the officers and reveal investigative techniques, said Molly Kaplan, an American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman
read more:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/national-data-shootings-police-not-collected
pipoman
(16,038 posts)police work is not at the top of the most dangerous jobs list..they wish people to believe it is to justify bad acts in the name of "officer safety"..one of the most disingenuous claims made by street cops for behaving badly..
They have police work #12 in this list..
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2010/04/07/dangerous-jobs.html#slide15
Oh, and if I remember correctly, something like 80% of those killed in the line of duty are killed in auto crashes..there was a story a few years ago about that..
appleannie1
(5,067 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)...I do daily Google alerts for police shootings and killings for my work, and it's a rare day when they don't kill somebody. Most days, it's two or three, sometimes four. 365 days a year.