US law enforcement deaths on pace to rise as officers face increasing threats of violence

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty this year is on pace to surpass last year’s death toll, federal data shows, adding to the increasing threat of violence law enforcement has faced in recent years.

As of Aug. 9, 41 officers across the United States have been fatally wounded on the job in 2023, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted data collection. There were 39 such “felonious” deaths by the same point in 2022, the agency reported.

“The war on cops in 2022 just continued to march on,” Fraternal Order of Police National Vice President Joe Gamaldi said earlier this year on “Fox News Live.”

That “war” was on full display this week when body camera video showed a Connecticut police officer “fighting for her life” as a man charged at her with a hammer while she responded to a noise complaint. It was one of the latest examples of the type of attack on police that can be lethal.

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“Felonious” deaths

The FBI defines an officer’s death as “felonious” if it was “a direct result of a willful and intentional act by an offender.”

By the end of last year, 61 officers around the country were lost on the job under those circumstances, the FBI said. Although it was down from the 71 officers killed in 2021 – the highest death toll since 72 officers died in 2011 – last year’s total continued an alarming trend over the past decade.

Data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund showed 64 officers were killed in 2022, a 21% increase from the 53-per-year average of 2010 through 2020.

Thus far this year, 32 officers were killed with guns and four were struck by drivers. Other methods and weapons were used on the remaining victims. 

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Patrick Yoes, the president of the National Fraternal Order of Police (NFOP), wrote that 2022 was “one of the most dangerous years for law enforcement in recent history due to the increase of violence directed toward law enforcement officers as well as the nationwide crime crisis.”

This was due, he said, to “criminals emboldened by the failed policies of pandering prosecutors and cynical politicians.”

According to data compiled by the NFOP, 328 officers were shot in 2022 as of Dec. 29 that year.

Although data from this year and 2022 has yet to be published, the FBI said in 2021 that assaults on law enforcement officers had increased by 11.2% from 2020, and assaults involving weapons increased by 10.5%.

The number of officers that sustained multiple injuries as a result of these assaults increased by 18.3%, per the data, which the FBI wrote was “statistically significant.” 

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However, according to Justin Nix, a professor at the University of Nebraska’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the data is not conclusive – of approximately 17,500 police departments in the country, only 7,886 of those departments shared their yearly data with the FBI.

The agency had switched from their Uniform Crime Reporting data collection system to its more detailed National Incident-Based Reporting System, and only 53% of departments are currently sharing their data. 

Nix told Fox News Digital that participation is slowly but surely increasing.

CONNECTICUT MAN SEEN BRUTALLY ATTACKING POLICE OFFICER WITH HAMMER ON BODY CAMERA

Most of the assaults reported by the FBI – 74.3% – were carried out with hands, fists or feet. Firearms accounted for 5.1% of the assaults and 2.3% involved knives. “Other dangerous weapons” were used in the remaining 18.3% of attacks, per FBI data. 

One of those “dangerous weapons” was used in Saturday’s attack on the Connecticut police officer that was captured on body camera footage.

Detective Karli Travis was responding to a noise complaint in Middletown when 52-year-old Winston Tate approached, gripping a claw hammer in his hand, police said.

Travis calmly asked Tate to “please” drop the hammer. Just after the officer radioed for help, Tate could be seen charging toward her. He struck her over and over with the hammer as the officer screamed, and eventually began firing her handgun, video shows.

Tate was charged with criminal attempt to commit first-degree assault, second-degree assault and assault on public safety personnel. 

Travis survived in part because of what Middletown Police Chief Eric McCallister called her “extreme act of heroism.”