Q&A – Attacks on Law Enforcement
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.
Today’s Entry: Hi Brian, I listen to your show every morning and enjoy the facts that you share with your audience. It's obvious how much time you spend researching and sourcing your information and it is much appreciated. I really like your tribute to the fallen officers every week and it is great news that LOD’s are down but you haven’t mentioned the number of officers violently attacked and/or shot each year. The data is readily available and it might make for some pretty shocking results. My understanding is that 2023 had almost 400 officers shot and that seems to me to be an even better indicator of the high number of attacks on law enforcement. Many of those officers would have died 10 years ago but the advancements in body armor technology, police tactics, and trauma care mean many officers survive those injuries today that otherwise might not have only a few years ago. The other problem with only using LOD stats is that it will never take into account the number of officers permanently disabled, suffering job loss due to injuries, etc. I certainly don’t expect you to read off each story of those shot/stabbed every week, but it might be a nice addition to occasionally inform the audience of the number injured by gunfire in a given month. Especially given the 3 officers killed in Charlotte, NC this afternoon. Keep up the great work and know that you are appreciated.
Bottom Line: Your support is truly appreciated, and I hear you and understand regarding the many who’re attacked and often left with permanent injuries. The reason my weekly update has focused on line of duty deaths has been in part, what you mentioned, that unfortunately there are so many law enforcement professionals regularly attacked that it’s not plausible to mention them all (according to the FBI’s database over 56,000 on average annually), but mostly because the premise of starting the feature in 2016 was to honor those who’d paid the ultimate price in service to their communities while also humanizing law enforcement professionals as opposed to treating them as statistics.
For years I’d watched as violence against law enforcement professionals grew and along with increased violence, line of duty deaths as well. Then, in July of 2016, when I watched coverage of the ambush killing of five Dallas police officers at the hands of a man who was a member of Black Lives Matter, I felt like something needed to be done. While most associate the BLM movement with the summer of 2020 following the killing of George Floyd, the original growth of the movement was in the summer of 2016. Because the average American wasn’t familiar with the Marxist organization known as Black Lives Matter in the summer of 2016 – most didn’t pick up on the key detail that the Dallas perp was a member. Ditto with Colin Kaepernick, as he began wearing anti-police clothing as part of his NFL uniform and infamously began kneeling for the national anthem. Kaepernick, and his girlfriend were early and prominent members of BLM.
With so much hatred being directed at law enforcement I felt that the problem would continue to get worse, which for years we saw happen as the BLM movement grew. But anyway, I thought that perhaps the best way to address the issue was to say the names of those who’d fallen in the line of duty while also highlighting the widows and children left behind. It was easy for BLM to spread hateful messages including slogans like “police are pigs, fry them like bacon”. I thought it’d be much harder to try to get that message to stick when it’s known who the fallen officers are and often the families that are left broken as a result. Now, to your point, there’s much more to the story about violence against law enforcement than only those who’ve fallen in service.
As mentioned, there were a total of 378 officers who were shot in the line of duty last year which was an increase of 14% from the previous year, 9% over two years ago and a stunning 60% increase over the past five years. So, to your point, while line of duty deaths reached the lowest number total in over twenty years last year, it wasn’t necessarily because of less violence being carried out against law enforcement professionals.
The FBI compiles an annual total of documented attacks on law enforcement professionals from agencies across the country. They’ve yet to release the 2023 totals, however 2022, which is the most recently reported year, included a record 66,415 attacks (about 182 per day). That's a total that’s about 10,000 more than the ten-year average as well, which seems to highlight the extent of the problem. Of the greater than 66 thousand assaults over 22,000 resulted in injuries. Given that the ten-year trend for assaults has been higher, including with an increase in law enforcement professionals having been shot last year even while overall LODs trended to the lowest level in decades, what you mentioned at the onset seems to be on point. Better body armor, tactics, and technology do appear to be playing an important role in saving the lives of those in law enforcement who’re attacked.
The National Fraternal Order of Police provides a monthly update on the number of officers who are shot in the line of duty. Starting with this week’s update I’ll include that information in the weekly update.