Commentary
Working as a police officer is dangerous. According to a report published by ISHN, a magazine dedicated to health and safety, “compared with the average job nationwide, based upon the workplace fatality rate,” working as a police officer is 4.1 times more dangerous.
Police officers now have a workplace fatality rate “similar to maintenance workers, construction workers, and heavy vehicle mechanics.” A new report, published by the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) shows just how dangerous being a police officer really is.
The FOP, the world’s largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers, has more than 364,000 members. The organization describes itself as “the voice of those who dedicate their lives to protecting and serving our communities.”
In January 2023, according to the organization’s report, 34 of those who have dedicated their lives to protecting and serving their fellow Americans were shot while on duty, marking a 113 percent increase from the same time period in 2020.
In 2016, 237 police officers were shot on duty; 53 of them died. In 2020, the number of shootings jumped to 312, with 47 killed while on duty. Last year, the number of shootings and fatalities rose significantly: 331 police officers were shot, and 62 were killed while on active duty.
Ambush attacks, which involve an officer or officers being fired upon without warning or an opportunity to defend themselves, have become increasingly common, the report said.
This year alone, there have been eight ambush-style attacks on law enforcement officers, resulting in nine officers being shot, one of them fatally so. The number of ambush-style attacks listed, notes the report, “does not include the countless incidents where an officer was shot at but not struck by gunfire during an ambush-style attack.” These types of attacks, warn the authors, “contribute to a worrisome desensitization to evil acts that were once largely considered taboo except by the most depraved individuals.”
Ambush attacks are not a new problem; they have occurred for years. However, in recent years, the frequency and the violence of the attacks have certainly increased. In 2013, for example, between 200 and 300 ambush attacks were reported. Since then, as the report states, the number of fatal attacks on officers attributable to ambush attacks has skyrocketed.
The report comes at a time when an increasing number of police officers nationwide are quitting their jobs and police departments are struggling to fill vacancies.
As Cronkite News reported in December, since mid-2019, Seattle has lost more than a quarter of its police force. Last year, states such as North Carolina, Florida, and Colorado experienced mass resignations. In 2022, as data obtained by the New York Post shows, the New York City Police Department saw more than 3,700 officers either retire or resign, the highest number in 20 years.
The FOP’s report also comes at a time when an increasing number of officers are taking their own lives. A 2022 report by The San Bernardino American highlights the fact that “police officers are nearly two-fold more likely to become depressed than people working other occupations” and 1.54 times more likely to take their own lives. Because of the stress of the job, many officers fail to get enough sleep, averaging less than six hours per night.
The links among depression, sleep deprivation, and suicide are incredibly strong. Sleep disturbances and suicidal ideation are intimately linked. Female police officers and black male officers are particularly at risk of suicide. As The San Bernardino report noted, suicide rates for female police officers are “approximately 2.03 times that of the average population, while black male police officers are approximately 2.55 times your average worker.”
On a recent episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” Medaria Arradondo, a law enforcement official who served as the chief of the Minneapolis Police Department from 2017 to 2022, spoke about the difficulties of being a police officer in the United States, especially a black police officer. Arradondo, who happens to be black, conceded that black police officers are often viewed as traitors by members of the black community. This reality, one assumes, plays a role in why so many black officers are taking their own lives.
Although calls to defund the police have, in recent times, become less vocal, and anti-police sentiment has been less prevalent, things appear to be changing. As Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, recently noted, anti-police ideologues looking to exploit the suffering endured by Tyre Nichols and his family are attempting to rebrand and resell “the message that policing is inherently racist.” Moreover, he suggested, the disingenuous opportunists “want to abolish the law enforcement infrastructure that underpins society.”
As these calls continue to gather momentum, and as anti-police sentiments start to reemerge, we should expect the violent ambushes and high levels of suicide to continue.
