An FBI database of police officers killed in the line of duty shows that more have died since Joe Biden became president than deaths dating back to 1995.
“We believe it’s a combination … of the George Floyd protests — riots, if you will; a general feeling of a preference for less law enforcement; and less prosecution and less policing,” Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) and a 20-year police veteran, said in a Fox News report.
“Law enforcement officers have essentially been marginalized and demoralized and cast aside and encouraged now to enforce the law,” Johnson said. “And so we’ve seen massive jumps in the homicide rate in cities across America.”
The casket of New York City Police Officer Wilbert Mora is delivered to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for his wake, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Johnson said rising homicide rates in major U.S. cities have “also resulted in many more officers being assaulted because … a lot of leaders in these cities and leaders in Congress and leaders in the White House have really voiced a lack of respect for law enforcement officers.”
Police officers stand at attention ahead of the processional of fallen officer Wilbert Mora from at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on February 2, 2022 in New York City. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Fox News reported on the death toll:
In 2021, the FBI counted 73 officers intentionally killed in the line of duty. That’s a nearly 59 percent increase compared to the 46 intentionally killed in 2020.The last time more than 72 officers were killed was in 1995, when 74 officers were intentionally killed on the job, according to LEOKA data.
The next highest number of officers intentionally killed on duty was 72 in 2011, according to LEOKA data analyzed in a report by the Heartland Institute.That number was 55 in 2012, 27 in 2013, 51 in 2014, 41 in 2015, 66 in 2016, 46 in 2017, 56 in 2018 and 48 in 2019.
Ambush attacks against officers were also up in 2021, with LEOKA data showing that 32 officers were killed in an ambush or unprovoked attack in 2021, exceeding previous records dating back to at least 1987, according to the Heartland Institute’s report.
The statistics come in the wake of calls to defund police following the death of George Floyd, which sparked months of anti-police riots where officers were attacked and injured.
Now as crime surges across the country more and more states, including previously defund-police blue states, are seeking to re-fund police.
“Until and unless we see some leadership — both in the White House and in individual cities, district attorneys that are willing to hold police accountable when they’re wrong but are willing to support them when they’re right — we’re going to continue to speak up not only with increasing levels of violent crime but increasing numbers of assaults and the killing of law enforcement officers,” Johnson said.
Johnson said in the Fox News report that the Biden administration’s “actions have shown that they are not supportive of the police,” including the president visiting New York City just one day after thousands of officers and civilians paid their final respects to fallen New York Police Department (NYPD) officers Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera, who were killed when responding to a domestic violence report.
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