Comments on: Wait, the narrative has changed

By: mariner

mariner — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:37:06 +0000

So five cops were shot by police officers or former police officers. That’s roughly ten percent.

I’ll bet none of them were shot by lawfully armed citizens.

By: Armeggedon Rex

Armeggedon Rex — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:35:38 +0000

It sounds like the most effective thing we can do to protect our men and women in blue is to get them away from motor vehicles. I guess we could always re-implement widespread foot patrol and “mounted” patrols on horseback. I guess there’s no need to mention what those “safety” changes would do to response times.

Maybe we just have to accept that policing a free people in a republic is inherently risky. That’s one reason we honor our peace officers so much and pay them fairly well.

By: divemedic

divemedic — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:13:21 +0000

Of the 49 officers killed by gunfire in 2009:

1 was killed while working off duty as a security guard
2 were mistakenly shot by other cops
2 were shot by their own guns after a criminal disarmed them
3 were shot by former police officers
of the remainder:
11 were shot with unknown type firearms
5 by unknown type rifles
3 with shotguns
17 with handguns
5 with weapons covered by the AWB

By: D2k

D2k — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:46:06 +0000

Relevant statistics are on this page http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

The more important statistic is LEO feloniously killed.
2009 hasn’t been posted yet, but 2008 was 41 killed feloniously in the line of duty.

Some interesting notes from that:
# 36 of the 42 alleged offenders had prior criminal arrests.
# 11 of the alleged offenders were under judicial supervision at the time of the incidents.
# 4 officers attempted to use their weapons; 11 officers fired their weapons.
# 19 officers were slain with firearms when they were 0-5 feet from the offenders.

By: divemedic

divemedic — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:42:37 +0000

To add:

In 2008, there were 138 cops killed in the line of duty:

41 gunfire
71 in vehicle crashes
1 hit by a train
1 stabbed
24 other causes

By: divemedic

divemedic — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:38:36 +0000

According to the officer down memorial page, there were 120 cops killed in the line of duty in 2009.

55 in vehicle crashes
49 by gunfire (at least two killed mistakenly by other cops)
4 in plane crashes
2 killed by inmates hand to hand
9 heart attacks on duty
1 when a tree fell on him

I have an upcoming post on this.

By: LC Scotty

LC Scotty — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:30:46 +0000

The decreased number represents the total officers killed by all causes while the increased number is officers killed only by gunfire.

An increase in gunfire deaths coupled with a decrease in traffic deaths resulted in an overall decrease in officer deaths.