FBI Releases National Report on Slain Police Officers, Figures are Alarming

A recent report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows that the number of police officers killed in the line of duty over the course of the last year jumped by nearly 90 percent from a couple of years ago. Although the news looks alarming, investigators say that the figures are not above the annual average for the last 35 years.

In the FBI report, which was publicly released Monday, the agency disclosed that 51 police officers were “feloniously” terminated while serving community in 2014, which is an 89 percent increase from 27 officers killed two years ago.

The agency estimates that on an average about 64 officers faced death in job-related scenarios over three decades and a half. The recent report is consistent with the recent reports on police officers killed in the line of duty nationwide.

Additionally, the FBI report was released amid national unrest related to African Americans or members of the Latino community ruthlessly gunned down by law enforcement officers. It seems however, that there is a grim toll on both sides.

Regardless of the extended programs to train police officers and precautionary measures such as enhanced body armors, working as a police officer is still a risky job. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, thousands of New Yorkers attended NYPD Officer Brian Moore’s funeral. Moore was shot in the head in his patrol car in Queens by an armed suspect for no apparent reason.

Moore’s death was the third death of a NYPD police officer in less than six months.

Moreover, this weekend two Hattiesburg police officers were killed during a routine traffic stop. Two men and a woman were taken into custody. The suspects had multiple arrests on gun and drug trafficking charges.

But according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s statistics, being a police officer became increasingly safer over the course of years. The group learned that although more than 200 police officers were slain on a yearly basis during the 1970s and 1980s, since the turn of the 21st Century that number dropped below 200.

For 2014, the FBI report shows that 38 of the slain police officers were killed with guns – 32 with handguns, 11 with riffles and the rest with shotguns. Four others died when suspects used a car as a deadly weapon, while one officer died after being beaten to death.

Thirty-five of the 51 police officers killed last year wore body armor when they were slain, the report shows. FBI also reports that the most dangerous region to serve as a police officer is the South. Seventeen officers were killed in South over the course of last year, while fourteen were put to death in the West.

The South was revealed as a dangerous place for police officers in 2013 reports as well.

Additionally, police officers who tried to tackle disturbances were at the highest risk of being killed. About 11 of them died after having answered a call related to a disturbance. Ten law enforcement officers were killed while performing traffic stops or pursuits, according to the report.

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