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How Many Police Officers Killed In 2017

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Everyone from the Hollywood elite to NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem from the mainstream media to teachers at schools across the country seem to want to declare that police are racists.

Theyll tell you theres a disproportionate number of unarmed black men being killed by the cops.

That police brutality is out of control.

Except the numbers once again absolutely destroy that argument.

  • According to 2019 data, there are 328, 240, 469 people here in the United States.
  • According to stats from com, there are 670,279 full time police officers here in the United States out of a total of 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers .
  • There are approximately 2.1 police officers per thousand people.
  • Police officers are less than .21 % of population.
  • Officers come into contact with 17% of the population annually.

That means 55,800,880 contacts

  • Which, at the time of the last report, led to 26,000 excessive force complaints against officers.
  • Thats 0.047% of contacts.

Police Violence And Gun Ownership

The role of gun prevalence in police violence is another area that has recently garnered attention. Some recent research has found a connection between the number of households who own guns in a state and the rate of police violence in those states. A 2018 study published in the Journal of Urban Health found that fatal police shootings were 40 percent more likely in states with higher rates of gun ownership.

Nationwide Police Shot And Killed Nearly 1000 People In 2017

For the third year in a row, police nationwide shot and killed nearly 1,000 people, a grim annual tally that has persisted despite widespread public scrutiny of officers use of fatal force.

Police fatally shot 987 people last year, or two dozen more than they killed in 2016, according to an ongoing Washington Post database project that tracks the fatal shootings. Since 2015, The Post has logged the details of 2,945 shooting deaths, culled from local news coverage, public records and social-media reports.

While many of the year-to-year patterns remain consistent, the number of unarmed black males killed in 2017 declined from two years ago. Last year, police killed 19, a figure tracking closely with the 17 killed in 2016. In 2015, police shot and killed 36 unarmed black males.

Experts said they are uncertain why the annual total shows little fluctuation the number for 2017 is almost identical to the 995 killed by police in 2015.

Some believe the tally may correspond to the number of times police encounter people, an outcome of statistical probability. Other experts are exploring whether the number tracks with overall violence in American society.

The attention may have helped police reduce the number of unarmed people shot and killed each year, according to interviews with experts and police departments. Officers fatally shot 94 unarmed people in 2015, but that number has been lower in the past two years, with 51 killed in 2016 and 68 in 2017.

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Saw More Police Deaths Than In Previous Years Including South Salt Lakes First Officer Fatality

Friends of police officer David Romrell carry his casket away for planned cremation following funeral services at Larkin Sunset Gardens Cemetery in Sandy, Wed. Dec. 5, 2018.

Washington More police officers have died in the line of duty this year in the United States than in 2017, according to data released Thursday. Most were killed by gunfire, and vehicular accidents claimed nearly as many officers’ lives, including that of South Salt Lake Officer David Romrell.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said in a report that 144 federal, state and local officers have died so far in 2018. That figure represents roughly a 12 percent increase from the 129 who died in 2017.

The majority of the officers who died were either shot 52 this year, up from 46 in 2017 or fatally injured in car or motorcycle crashes, which accounted for 50 deaths. Other fatalities involved heart attacks, strokes, drownings and cancer and other illnesses among those who responded to the 9/11 World Trade Center attack.

Of the officers who were shot, eight were killed during investigative activity and six were killed while responding to calls of a domestic or public disturbance, according to the report. Two were shot while serving warrants, two died while handling or transporting prisoners and two others were inadvertently shot by other officers.

Craig Floyd, the fund’s chief executive officer, called the increase in deaths disappointing after a decline in 2017.

The President Felt The Pain

128 Law Enforcement Officer Fatalities Nationwide in 2017

This July, Detective Miosotis Familia was the first woman NYPD officer killed in the line of duty since the 9/11 attacks. A pedestrian approached her vehicle and shot her in the head, one of the eight ambush killings this year.

Familia chose a midnight shift, her family recalls, because she wanted to spend more of the daytime with her family. Her priority was always her children and my mother, said her sister Mercedes Proefrock, who recalled Familias contagious smile.

To see someone and then having them disappear like that, its hard, she added.

President Donald Trump called Proefrock after Familia was killed.

That moment, I respected that man, Proefrock said. The president took two minutes of his time to make me feel like she didnt die in vain to show her children that the President of the United States also felt the pain.

Floyd, who tracks officers killed on duty, said that while the rate of ambush attacks fluctuates, some departments have improved responses through situational awareness.

We need to be always aware of the dangers that lurk around us, Floyd said, in terms of people literally attacking and assassinating law enforcement officers.

Whether an officer lives or dies can also depend on funding and technology, Chuck Wexler, who runs the Police Executive Research Forum, which advocates advancements in policing through research and policy developments, said.

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Racial Disparities By Type Of Shooting

Examination of National Violent Death Reporting System data shows racial differences across types of fatal shootings. Black civilians fatally shot by police are more likely to be unarmed and less likely to pose an immediate threat to officers . In contrast, White civilians are nearly three times more likely to be fatally shot by police when the incident is related to mental-health concerns and are seven times more likely to commit suicide by cop . These are incidents where a civilian threatens a police officer for the purpose of ending their life and reflect higher rates of suicide overall among Whites relative to Black and Hispanic civilians .

Racial differences in the frequency of certain types of FOIS matter because they may mask racial disparities in other types of fatal shootings. Even if a person fatally shot during a criminal encounter is more likely to be Black than White, this disparity will be difficult to detect if White civilians commit suicide by police intervention more frequently and such cases represent a large proportion of the overall FOIS. As past work has not distinguished between shootings where the civilian is or is not suicidal, it is unclear how much these disparities cancel each other out.

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There Was An Increase In Unprovoked Attacks

In late 2021, two Bradley, Illinois, police officers were shot while responding to a call about dogs barking in a hotel parking lot Sgt. Marlene R. Rittmanic died from her injuries and Officer Tyler J. Bailey was hospitalized in critical condition.

In Baltimore, Officer Keona Holley died last month after being shot while sitting in her patrol car. Two suspects were charged with attempted murder in the shooting of Holley after they confessed to the crime, but their motive remains unclear, said Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison.

Among felonious deaths of officers last year, 25 were killed in unprovoked attacks through December 27 of last year, according to the FBI. Its a marked increase from previous years, which usually see the number of officers killed in unprovoked attacks in the low single-digits. In 2020, just two officers were killed in this manner.

The FBI told CNN that they are currently conducting an analysis on this sharp rise in reports of unprovoked attacks, which they say are not concentrated in any one region of the country.

The FBIs Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted data collection program refers to an ambush as an entrapment and premeditated attack, while unprovoked is classified as an attack not prompted by official contact at the time of the incident, according to the agency.

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Traffic Poses The Biggest Threat To Officers

Car crashes and other traffic-related incidents pose the biggest threat to police officers, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the memorial fund.

More than 800 officers died as a result of these incidents from 2006 to 2019. Thats 43% of all line-of-duty deaths.

The CDC says behavior-related hazards put officers at particular risk for traffic-related injuries or death on the job. These include not wearing a seat belt, speeding, being distracted while on a device while driving or experiencing tunnel vision from increased stress.

What Does Armed Mean

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Sometimes the concept of armed is complicated.

I personally dont think my nephew was trying to hurt anybody. I dont think he was going to use that vehicle as a weapon at all, Wellington said. I think he was doing what a scared 15-year-old person might do if someone pointed a gun in their face and a flashlight, and that is run.

Wellington believes police failed his nephew.

These officers forgot my nephew is a member of the community and placed the importance of recovering a stolen vehicle over the value of a life. To me thats pretty callous, he said.

I dont believe that these officers have a real commitment in these moments of making sure that everyone survives this encounter. I believe that that is a failing of policing.

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Caution Against Comparisons With Data From Other Organizations

The FBIs LEOKA Program is one of a number of entities that report information concerning line-of-duty deaths and/or assaults of law enforcement officersin the United States. Each organization has its own purpose and may use different methods to collect and report information or focus on somewhat differentaspects of these important topics. Therefore, care should be taken not to compare LEOKA data to data provided by other entities, such as the Officer DownMemorial Page, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, and others. More information about the LEOKA Programs mission and history is included onthis page. Refer to the Criteria page for the requirements thatdetermine which officers are included in this report.

Us Police Shootings: How Many Die Each Year

On Sunday morning, three police officers were shot dead in Baton Rouge. This attack came just 10 days after five police officers were killed in Dallas. Both events were revenge attacks for the killing of young black men by police.

The bloodshed has shocked the US, leading President Barack Obama to call for calm. But how many police officers are killed in the US in a normal year? And how many people are killed by police?

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The Threat Of Violence At Work

While the average police officer may be more likely to be murdered at work than the average cashier, violence against retail workers has been a real concern for years.

In 2016, 121 people working in sales were killed in homicides at work. In 2015, 96 people were killed, and in 2014, 107 people were killed. Every year from 2012 to 2017, more retail workers than police officers and firefighters were murdered on the job. The latest year for which this data is available is 2017.

Retail workers are actually more likely than people working in protective services to have nonfatal injuries that force them to take time off work.

There were roughly 55,480 nonfatal injuries on the job linked to days off work among retail workers in 2017, or 382 injuries for every 100,000 workers. And 9,540 law-enforcement officers and firefighters were injured at work the same year 280 injuries for every 100,000 workers.

The dangers faced by retail workers have been highlighted after two shootings in Walmart stores that killed 24 people in El Paso, Texas, and Southaven, Mississippi. Two store workers were killed in the Southaven shooting, which was carried out by another Walmart employee.

“It would be hard to find any establishment that hosts the public this week not thinking about what else should be done,” the hospitality-industry consultant Bjorn Hanson told Business Insider.

Months Days And Times Of Incidents

Ambush
  • More officers died from felonious assaults that occurred in May than in any other month in 2017.
  • More officers were involved in fatal assaults that occurred on Fridays than on any other day of the week.
  • 17 officers were fatally injured in assaults that happened between 12:01 a.m. and noon.
  • 29 officers were fatally injured in assaults that happened between 12:01 p.m. and midnight.

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The Vast Majority Of People Shot And Killed By Police Are Armed

Nearly six in 10 people shot and killed by police had a gun. Many others were armed with a knife or other weapon. However, determining the threat posed by a weapon can be tricky. For example, 155 people killed by police since 2015 were found after the shooting to be wielding toy guns.

What leads to shootings?

List Of Law Enforcement Officers Killed In The Line Of Duty In The United States

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This is a list of U.S. law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Summaries of the overall casualty figures, by year, are also provided.

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Edmonton No Longer Gun

Gun crime tends to ebb and flow in Canadas largest urban centres.

From 2013 to 2016, Edmonton had the highest rate of violent crime involving a firearm.

But gun crime has been on decline in the Alberta capital and it has since been overtaken, slightly, by Calgary and even more so by Toronto on that front.

The rate of violent gun crime has been on the rise in Toronto for the past four years.

Vancouver, by contrast, which had the highest rate back in 2012, has seen a steady decline in violent gun crime and, by 2017, it had the lowest rate of five urban centres studied.

The use of firearms in crime raises the question: Where did the guns come from?

In the past, police have said most crime guns were smuggled into Canada from the United States. But theres some evidence thats been changing, with police in Toronto citing a recent surge in the number of illegal guns sourced from within our national borders.

And the stats do show an increase in the theft of firearms, but theres a bit of catch to those numbers.

Matt Agorist December 31, 2017

However, there is another number that is particularly worrisome and it has to do with how many people American police have killed this year. As of the publishing of this article, the number of people whove been killed by police in 2017 is 1,184. This is nearly 100 times the number of people killed by terrorists inside the United States this year and yet the government and the media at large remain entirely silent on this violent epidemic.

Domestic Violence Was A Part Of Most Mass Shootings

21 Police Officers Charged With Murder Or Manslaughter In 2021

Although many people think of mass shootings as random acts of violence, this analysis shows that most mass shootings are not at all random: In at least 53 percent of mass shootings between 2009 and 2020, the perpetrator shot a current or former intimate partner or family member during the rampage. These domestic violence-related mass shootings resulted in at least 632 people shot and killed and 106 people wounded, amounting to almost half of all mass shooting deaths and one in ten injuries.

Nearly 3 in 4 children and teens killed in mass shootings died in an incident connected to domestic violence.

53 percent of mass shootings were domestic violence-related.

Too often, children and teens are the victims of domestic violence mass shootings: Of the 362 children and teens killed in all mass shootings in the past 12 years, nearly three in four died in an incident connected to intimate partner or family violence.

The findings about domestic violence-related mass shootings and where mass shootings tend to occur are interlinked. Nearly all of these domestic violence-related shootings involved at least one victim in a private home , and 80 percent of them occurred there entirely and never moved into a public space.Of mass shootings that were related to domestic violence, 117 of them occurred at least partially in the home and 101 occurred entirely in the home.

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