But the authors focus in on something else: the fact that officers are frequently dispatched alone or respond alone to such calls until backup arrives. The report also acknowledges poor information sharing and a lack of coordination between responding officers as factors. The people involved are often desperate and conflicted, and alcohol or drugs may be a factor. Why are domestic incidents so dangerous? Emotions run extremely high during such calls. “Domestic issues are the main factor or undercurrent that runs through the fatal encounters that were analyzed,” the report’s authors note. The next-highest category of calls were “disturbance” at 13 percent and “man with a gun” at 10 percent. The more recent report confirms this finding: 29 percent of the fatalities studied happened during calls related to domestic disputes and domestic-related incidents. The Dangers of Domestic IncidentsĪ previous report from NLEOMF/COPS revealed what many officers already knew to be true: Domestic incidents are some of the most dangerous calls law enforcement officers respond to. Within the analysis is an equally disturbing finding: the connection between domestic incidents and police ambushes. All told, 81 officers were killed in these horrific assaults between 2010-2016 … The assassination of peace officers has been a concern for several years, but it has been over two decades since the number of ambushes of police officers exceeded 20 such killings in one year.” The report notes, “In 2016, the United States law enforcement community saw a dramatic spike in the number of ambushes against officers who were targeted specifically because they were uniformed police officers or deputies. One disturbing trend within these statistics is the increase in the number of ambushes against officers. The report analyzes 1,016 line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) that occurred between 2010-2016. Understanding the circumstances that lead to officers being shot and killed is the subject of “ Making It Safer,” a report published in December by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) and the Department of Justice Community Oriented Police Services (COPS). This is not to say we should take the focus off safe driving habits such as the Below 100 tenets “Watch your speed” and “Wear your belt.” Many traffic-related officer fatalities are completely preventable and law enforcement agencies should focus on the “low-hanging fruit”-simple actions that can have a dramatic impact on officer safety.īut obviously gunfire deaths deserve our attention as well. In 2017, the number of officers killed by gunfire equaled the number killed in traffic incidents. In fact, 2016 was one of the few years where gunfire deaths exceeded traffic-related officer fatalities. In the past two years, 110 law enforcement officers were shot and killed, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.
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