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A little over 50% of officers killed in the past 10 years were killed by accidents, mostly car accidents. Feloniously Killed: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis

A little over 50% of officers killed in the past 10 years were killed by accidents, mostly car accidents. Feloniously Killed: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_1_leos_fk_region_geographic_division_and_state_2005-2014.xls https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/tabl... Accidentally Killed: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_52_leos_ak_region_geographic_division_and_state_2005-2014.xls https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/tabl...

Mao_Zedang 10y ago
Good link thanks for finding it, I would say that 50 officers killed on purpose is even worse when compared to the other stats I linked. At face value it appears to be 5x higher. Interestingly look at the rate of injury as well especially from fire arms. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_76_leos_asltd_type_of_weapon_and_percent_injured_2005-2014.xls https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/tabl...
- knucklesandwich 10y ago
  In 2014, according to killedbypolice.net, the number of recorded killings by the police was 1111 [1], which would mean you have about _21 times_ the odds of being killed by police in a given interaction than they have of being killed by you. I haven't found any statistics on assaults from the police, so its hard to compare apples to apples there. I'm not saying it's not more dangerous to be a police officer than the average occupation (I think it goes without saying that we expect it to be a dangerous job). But it's important to put these numbers in global terms as well. The assault rate according to those stats was 9%, with a 28.3% injury rate from assaults. To put that in perspective, assuming injury rate remains constant (which doesn't appear to be the trend, it appears to be going down), that means you have about a 39.7% chance of serving 20 years and ever receiving an injury from a criminal. For a normal occupation that would be high, but for the police that doesn't seem especially dangerous. Especially considering that about 80% of those injuries are from "Personal Weapons" (aka, getting punched). Weather or not its an explanatory factor in a statistical sense, I don't know, but personally I can't see how that justifies some of these incidents. [1] http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html
  - pixl97 10y ago
    >which would mean you have about twice the odds of being killed by police in a given interaction than they have of being killed by you Why would that not be expected? They are both armed and trained. That statistic alone says nothing about the police being the perpetrators of the violence, only the party ending the violence.
    - knucklesandwich 10y ago
      Agreed, but this is the same argument you can make about police deaths. And it does say something about danger in an absolute sense (threat of death, at least). The threat of death is much higher to the person being engaged by police. Is that because of training, greater reliance on lethality, etc.? Agreed that this data isn't enough to substantiate an opinion. It's also unrelated to _perceived_ danger, which is arguably what the causal factor would be anyways. Only providing counter fodder to the appeal to police deaths as being indicative of danger of the job. If that's all we're going on, its more dangerous to be someone talking to the police.
  - Mao_Zedang 10y ago
    ~ the stats are much worse than that it suggests that one police officer is murdered per week and 6 are injured by a firearm (PER DAY). To suggest that those arent alarming rates and just part of the job is very ungenerous to those we trust with keeping us safe from belligerents. Imagine if it was someone in your family who was killed on duty. Sometimes "fuck the police" goes too far, some of us actually like law and order.
    - mhuffman 10y ago
      There are nearly 1 million police officers -- these are not high numbers! Certainly every individual one is a tragedy, and I wouldn't want it to be me, but overall these are not alarming numbers, taken in context.
      - Mao_Zedang 10y ago

Mao_Zedang 10y ago

Good link thanks for finding it, I would say that 50 officers killed on purpose is even worse when compared to the other stats I linked. At face value it appears to be 5x higher. Interestingly look at the rate of injury as well especially from fire arms. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_76_leos_asltd_type_of_weapon_and_percent_injured_2005-2014.xls https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/tabl...

knucklesandwich 10y ago
In 2014, according to killedbypolice.net, the number of recorded killings by the police was 1111 [1], which would mean you have about _21 times_ the odds of being killed by police in a given interaction than they have of being killed by you. I haven't found any statistics on assaults from the police, so its hard to compare apples to apples there. I'm not saying it's not more dangerous to be a police officer than the average occupation (I think it goes without saying that we expect it to be a dangerous job). But it's important to put these numbers in global terms as well. The assault rate according to those stats was 9%, with a 28.3% injury rate from assaults. To put that in perspective, assuming injury rate remains constant (which doesn't appear to be the trend, it appears to be going down), that means you have about a 39.7% chance of serving 20 years and ever receiving an injury from a criminal. For a normal occupation that would be high, but for the police that doesn't seem especially dangerous. Especially considering that about 80% of those injuries are from "Personal Weapons" (aka, getting punched). Weather or not its an explanatory factor in a statistical sense, I don't know, but personally I can't see how that justifies some of these incidents. [1] http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html
- pixl97 10y ago
  >which would mean you have about twice the odds of being killed by police in a given interaction than they have of being killed by you Why would that not be expected? They are both armed and trained. That statistic alone says nothing about the police being the perpetrators of the violence, only the party ending the violence.
  - knucklesandwich 10y ago
    Agreed, but this is the same argument you can make about police deaths. And it does say something about danger in an absolute sense (threat of death, at least). The threat of death is much higher to the person being engaged by police. Is that because of training, greater reliance on lethality, etc.? Agreed that this data isn't enough to substantiate an opinion. It's also unrelated to _perceived_ danger, which is arguably what the causal factor would be anyways. Only providing counter fodder to the appeal to police deaths as being indicative of danger of the job. If that's all we're going on, its more dangerous to be someone talking to the police.
- Mao_Zedang 10y ago
  ~ the stats are much worse than that it suggests that one police officer is murdered per week and 6 are injured by a firearm (PER DAY). To suggest that those arent alarming rates and just part of the job is very ungenerous to those we trust with keeping us safe from belligerents. Imagine if it was someone in your family who was killed on duty. Sometimes "fuck the police" goes too far, some of us actually like law and order.
  - mhuffman 10y ago
    There are nearly 1 million police officers -- these are not high numbers! Certainly every individual one is a tragedy, and I wouldn't want it to be me, but overall these are not alarming numbers, taken in context.
    - Mao_Zedang 10y ago