Officer deaths are community losses

Sunday’s tragic killings of police officers in Utah and Ohio, like this community’s loss of one of its own last year, tear at the gut. Such line-of-duty deaths add a poignant layer of mourning, and appreciation, for those who risk themselves for the benefit of fellow man.

Even one is too many. Is this a trend?

Resulting feelings and fears, along with understandably heightened attention, also lend themselves to misconception about how prevalent these losses are. In fact, while all forms of safety are paramount, officers may be statistically more likely to die by auto accident than personal attack.

Monday’s responses to these deaths included a statement from the Fraternal Order of Police that officer-aimed attacks (i.e., an intent to harm anyone in the uniform) are on the rise. Yet data also indicate officer deaths overall have declined over the last 50 years.

According to one report, 2015 was the second least deadly year for police officers in decades. The difficulty is that even among law enforcement sources, numbers indicating “total deaths” vary. What’s counted within subcategories in these totals also differs. The Officer Down Memorial Page, for example, put 2015’s deaths at 129 and 2014’s total at 133. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s 2014 total is 117.

In any case, line-of-duty deaths have been decreasing long term. Consider the two-century high of 280 job-related deaths in 1974, with proportionately less population than today. ODMP stats put officers killed on the job over the last 10 years at an average of 157 per year. Within that number, as reported in The Monitor Weekly, the highest category cause of death was vehicular and traffic accidents.

Among more than 20 listed causes by the NLEOMF, a relatively equal number of 2014 deaths were shootings and vehicle-related. The underlying statistics of these geographically diverse agencies are not compiled in the same way, nor do laws require that, which makes research and analysis difficult. Differences aside, one can compare NLEOMF’s 2014 total of 117 (or ODMP’s 133), to 161 total deaths in 2010 (or 177), and 195 (the same!) in 1988.

In fact, the 1980s are key to any effort to understand the complicated relationship between those who enforce laws and the citizens they protect. That was the beginning of the “war on drugs” and those tough-on-crime policies enacted by federal and state lawmakers. Drugs make police-citizen interactions more dangerous for everyone involved.

Drugs also changed the way we interact, even in their absence. The ’80s and ’90s saw more arrests, more altercations, longer and more non-violent offender prison terms, and more youth incarcerations — all which changed what we expect from, and how we interact with, one another. Training and procedure changed. Expectations and behaviors changed.

Society changed.

Although now slowly supplanted by broader understanding, the fallout only recently considered is the effect of those policies on the relationship between officer and citizen. As things escalated on all sides — part perception, part reality — this relationship shifted. A divide was widened; infamous riots another symptom. Trust eroded, and innocents are paying a price. Leaders both inside and outside law enforcement are looking at ways to rebalance that relationship for the benefit of everyone, toward what some are calling custodian-minded, community policing.

As with any relationship, that takes everyone working together. Community as a cohesive act. “Us and them” mentalities represent stereotyping, which never works. People lose when ceasing to see others — citizen, officer, user, non-user, advantaged, disadvantaged — as people first.

One death — anybody’s — in 2016 was one too many.

Sholeh Patrick, J.D., is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at [email protected].