Since the 1780s, over 25,000 United States law enforcement officers have died while on active duty, or due to injuries and illnesses obtained while on duty. Gunfire is responsible for over half of all total law enforcement deaths recorded, particularly before the 1930s. From this point on, the total share of gunfire deaths has decreased significantly, mostly due to the increase in vehicle or health related deaths, although gunfire has remained the most common individual cause of death in almost every year. Gunfire deaths These deaths rose steadily after the Civil War, and peaked at over 200 annual deaths during the 1920s, due to the increase in criminal activity during prohibition. Because of this, the National Firearms Act of 1934 was introduced in an attempt to reduce gun-related crime, by requiring the registration of any transfer of ownership and imposing a tax on gun manufacturers and distributors. After Prohibition's end and the introduction of these measures, annual law enforcement deaths from gunfire have been well below 100 in almost every year, except for a brief spike in the early 1970s, during the crime wave that began in the 1960s and the beginning of the "War on Drugs". Overall, gunfire deaths of law enforcement have fallen since the 1970s, reaching a low of just 34 deaths in 2013. In contrast, the total number of people killed by police shootings has consistently been above one thousand for most of the past decade.

Increase in health-related deaths

The majority of non-gunfire deaths are a result of vehicle-related accidents, and the number of crashes and accidents rose throughout the 20th century in line with the increase in car ownership. However, the number of deaths from heart attacks and job-related illness has also risen over time, due to the aging of the population and increasingly unhealthy lifestyle trends across the country. In recent decades, additional health issues have emerged that have had a disproportionate impact on law enforcement. In 2001, 72 officers died as a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and over 350 additional deaths have been attributed to the adverse health effects (primarily respiratory illnesses) sustained by first responders from law enforcement. From 2020-2022, COVID-19 became the largest single cause of law enforcement deaths. Figures relate to cases where the individual contracted COVID-19 while on duty, and highlights the increased exposure to the virus faced by those considered to be frontline or essential workers. This number is likely to fall in the future as infection rates fall and newer strains of the virus are less lethal.

As of September 30, there were ** law enforcement officers killed in the United States in 2024. Within the provided time period, the highest number of law enforcement officers killed in the United States was reported in 2021, at ** officers.

In 2022, a total of 226 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States. This is a significant decrease from the year before, when 458 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States.

In 2022, significantly more male law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States than did female law enforcement officers. In that year, 204 male law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States.

In 2023, the most common circumstance a law officer was killed at the scene in the United States was during an investigative or enforcement assignment, such as for a drug-related matter, a wanted person, or a traffic violation stop. Within this year, ** law enforcement officers died under these circumstances. Another **** law enforcement officers died during a crime in progress, while ***** officers were killed while in pursuit. In total, ** law enforcement officers died were killed in 2023.

The study was a comprehensive analysis of felonious killings of officers. The purposes of the study were (1) to analyze the nature and circumstances of incidents of felonious police killings and (2) to analyze trends in the numbers and rates of killings across different types of agencies and to explain these differences. For Part 1, Incident-Level Data, an incident-level database was created to capture all incidents involving the death of a police officer from 1983 through 1992. Data on officers and incidents were collected from the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data collection as coded by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. In addition to the UCR data, the Police Foundation also coded information from the LEOKA narratives that are not part of the computerized LEOKA database from the FBI. For Part 2, Agency-Level Data, the researchers created an agency-level database to research systematic differences among rates at which law enforcement officers had been feloniously killed from 1977 through 1992. The investigators focused on the 56 largest law enforcement agencies because of the availability of data for explanatory variables. Variables in Part 1 include year of killing, involvement of other officers, if the officer was killed with his/her own weapon, circumstances of the killing, location of fatal wounds, distance between officer and offender, if the victim was wearing body armor, if different officers were killed in the same incident, if the officer was in uniform, actions of the killer and of the officer at entry and final stage, if the killer was visible at first, if the officer thought the killer was a felon suspect, if the officer was shot at entry, and circumstances at anticipation, entry, and final stages. Demographic variables for Part 1 include victim's sex, age, race, type of assignment, rank, years of experience, agency, population group, and if the officer was working a security job. Part 2 contains variables describing the general municipal environment, such as whether the agency is located in the South, level of poverty according to a poverty index, population density, percent of population that was Hispanic or Black, and population aged 15-34 years old. Variables capturing the crime environment include the violent crime rate, property crime rate, and a gun-related crime index. Lastly, variables on the environment of the police agencies include violent and property crime arrests per 1,000 sworn officers, percentage of officers injured in assaults, and number of sworn officers.

Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has compiled the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to serve as a periodic nationwide assessment of reported crimes not available elsewhere in the criminal justice system. Each year, this information is reported in four types of files: (1) Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, (2) Property Stolen and Recovered, (3) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), and (4) Police Employee (LEOKA) Data. The Police Employee (LEOKA) Data provide information about law enforcement officers killed or assaulted (hence the acronym, LEOKA) in the line of duty. The variables created from the LEOKA forms provide in-depth information on the circumstances surrounding killings or assaults, including type of call answered, type of weapon used, and type of patrol the officers were on.

BackgroundPrior research suggests that United States governmental sources documenting the number of law-enforcement-related deaths (i.e., fatalities due to injuries inflicted by law enforcement officers) undercount these incidents. The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), administered by the federal government and based on state death certificate data, identifies such deaths by assigning them diagnostic codes corresponding to “legal intervention” in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases–10th Revision (ICD-10). Newer, nongovernmental databases track law-enforcement-related deaths by compiling news media reports and provide an opportunity to assess the magnitude and determinants of suspected NVSS underreporting. Our a priori hypotheses were that underreporting by the NVSS would exceed that by the news media sources, and that underreporting rates would be higher for decedents of color versus white, decedents in lower versus higher income counties, decedents killed by non-firearm (e.g., Taser) versus firearm mechanisms, and deaths recorded by a medical examiner versus coroner.Methods and findingsWe created a new US-wide dataset by matching cases reported in a nongovernmental, news-media-based dataset produced by the newspaper The Guardian, The Counted, to identifiable NVSS mortality records for 2015. We conducted 2 main analyses for this cross-sectional study: (1) an estimate of the total number of deaths and the proportion unreported by each source using capture–recapture analysis and (2) an assessment of correlates of underreporting of law-enforcement-related deaths (demographic characteristics of the decedent, mechanism of death, death investigator type [medical examiner versus coroner], county median income, and county urbanicity) in the NVSS using multilevel logistic regression. We estimated that the total number of law-enforcement-related deaths in 2015 was 1,166 (95% CI: 1,153, 1,184). There were 599 deaths reported in The Counted only, 36 reported in the NVSS only, 487 reported in both lists, and an estimated 44 (95% CI: 31, 62) not reported in either source. The NVSS documented 44.9% (95% CI: 44.2%, 45.4%) of the total number of deaths, and The Counted documented 93.1% (95% CI: 91.7%, 94.2%). In a multivariable mixed-effects logistic model that controlled for all individual- and county-level covariates, decedents injured by non-firearm mechanisms had higher odds of underreporting in the NVSS than those injured by firearms (odds ratio [OR]: 68.2; 95% CI: 15.7, 297.5; p < 0.01), and underreporting was also more likely outside of the highest-income-quintile counties (OR for the lowest versus highest income quintile: 10.1; 95% CI: 2.4, 42.8; p < 0.01). There was no statistically significant difference in the odds of underreporting in the NVSS for deaths certified by coroners compared to medical examiners, and the odds of underreporting did not vary by race/ethnicity. One limitation of our analyses is that we were unable to examine the characteristics of cases that were unreported in The Counted.ConclusionsThe media-based source, The Counted, reported a considerably higher proportion of law-enforcement-related deaths than the NVSS, which failed to report a majority of these incidents. For the NVSS, rates of underreporting were higher in lower income counties and for decedents killed by non-firearm mechanisms. There was no evidence suggesting that underreporting varied by death investigator type (medical examiner versus coroner) or race/ethnicity.

Version 3 release notes:

• Fix bug where Philadelphia Police Department had incorrect FIPS county code.

The LEOKA data sets contain highly detailed data about the number of officers/civilians employed by an agency and how many officers were killed or assaulted. Each data set contains over 2,200 columns and has a wealth of information about the circumstances of assaults on officers.

All the data was downloaded from NACJD as ASCII+SPSS Setup files and read into R using the package asciiSetupReader. It was then cleaned in R. The "cleaning" just means that column names were standardized (different years have slightly different spellings for many columns). Standardization of column names is necessary to stack multiple years together. Categorical variables (e.g. state) were also standardized (i.e. fix spelling errors).

About 7% of all agencies in the data report more officers or civilians than population. As such, I removed the officers/civilians per 1,000 population variables. You should exercise caution if deciding to generate and use these variables yourself.

I did not make any changes to the numeric columns except for the following. A few years of data had the values "blank" or "missing" as indicators of missing values. Rows in otherwise numeric columns (e.g. jan_asslt_no_injury_knife) with these values were replaced with NA. There were three obvious data entry errors in officers killed by felony/accident that I changed to NA.

In 1978 the agency "pittsburgh" (ORI = PAPPD00) reported 576 officers killed by accident during March.
In 1979 the agency "metuchen" (ORI = NJ01210) reported 991 officers killed by felony during August.
In 1990 the agency "penobscot state police" (ORI = ME010SP) reported 860 officers killed by accident during July.

No other changes to numeric columns were made.

Each zip file contains all years as individual monthly files of the specified data type It also includes a file with all years aggregated yearly and stacked into a single data set. Please note that each monthly file is quite large (2,200+ columns) so it may take time to download the zip file and open each data file.

For the R code used to clean this data, see here. https://github.com/jacobkap/crime_data.

The UCR Handbook (https://ucr.fbi.gov/additional-ucr-publications/ucr_handbook.pdf/view) describes the LEOKA data as follows:

"The UCR Program collects data from all contributing agencies ... on officer line-of-duty deaths and assaults. Reporting agencies must submit data on ... their own duly sworn officers feloniously or accidentally killed or assaulted in the line of duty. The purpose of this data collection is to identify situations in which officers are killed or assaulted, describe the incidents statistically, and publish the data to aid agencies in developing policies to improve officer safety.

"... agencies must record assaults on sworn officers. Reporting agencies must count all assaults that resulted in serious injury or assaults in which a weapon was used that could have caused serious injury or death. They must include other assaults not causing injury if the assault involved more than mere verbal abuse or minor resistance to an arrest. In other words, agencies must include in this section all assaults on officers, whether or not the officers sustained injuries."

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please contact me at jkkaplan6@gmail.com

In 2023, the majority of law enforcement officers that were killed in the United States were white. That year, ** white law enforcement officers as well as **** Black officers were killed. Overall, a total of ** law enforcement officers were killed in the United States in that year.

An annual publication in which the FBI provides data on officers feloniously or accidentally killed and officers that were assaulted while performing their duties.

Between January 1 and December 31, 2022, 33 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in Texas -- the most out of any state. New York, California, Georgia, and Tennessee rounded out the top five states for law enforcement fatalities in 2020.

The Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data, Police Employee Data, 2012 file contains monthly data on felonious or accidental killings and assaults upon United States law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assembled the data and processed them from UCR Master Police Employee (LEOKA) data tapes. Each agency record in the file includes the following summary variables: state code, population group code, geographic division, Metropolitan Statistical Area code, and agency name. These variables afford considerable flexibility in creating subsets or aggregations of the data. Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has compiled the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to serve as a periodic nationwide assessment of reported crimes not available elsewhere in the criminal justice system. Each year, this information is reported in four types of files: (1) Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, (2) Property Stolen and Recovered, (3) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), and (4) Police Employee (LEOKA) Data. The Police Employee (LEOKA) Data provide information about law enforcement officers killed or assaulted (hence the acronym, LEOKA) in the line of duty. The variables created from the LEOKA forms provide in-depth information on the circumstances surrounding killings or assaults, including type of call answered, type of weapon used, and type of patrol the officers were on.

Abstract (en): The Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program is an annual national census of persons who die either during the process of arrest or while in the custody of state or local law enforcement personnel. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) implemented the ARD program in 2003 as part of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP). The DCRP was initiated to fulfill the data collection requirement of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Act of 2000 (DICRA, P.L. 106- 247). It collects in-depth information on deaths during arrest and incarceration, and it provides national-level information on the deaths of suspects and offenders from their initial contact with law enforcement personnel through the time they are incarcerated in a jail or prison. ARD data are collected to quantify and describe the circumstances surrounding civilian deaths that take place during an arrest or while in the custody of law enforcement. These data describe the prevalence and incidence of arrest-related deaths across the nation, identify the circumstances or activities that contribute to these deaths, and reveal trends in the causes and circumstances of these deaths in custody at national and state levels. These data can be used to inform specific policies that may increase the safety of law enforcement officers and citizens, identify training needs in law enforcement agencies, and assist in developing prevention strategies. The current ARD program relies on state reporting coordinators (SRCs) in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to identify and report on all eligible cases of arrest-related deaths. BJS compiles data from the states to produce national-level statistics on deaths that occur in the process of arrest by, or while in the custody of, state and local law enforcement personnel. ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Standardized missing values.; Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.. Arrests related deaths of individuals reported by state and local law enforcement agencies from 2003 to 2009. Smallest Geographic Unit: state Individual-level death data are collected from the 50 state department of corrections in the United States. mail questionnaire, self-enumerated questionnaire

Definitions for law-enforcement-related deaths and reasons for underreporting in the National Vital Statistics System and The Counted.

For a comprehensive guide to this data and other UCR data, please see my book at ucrbook.comVersion 12 release notes:Adds 2021 data.Version 11 release notes:Adds 2020 data. Please note that the FBI has retired UCR data ending in 2020 data so this will (probably, I haven't seen confirmation either way) be the last LEOKA data they release. Changes .rda file to .rds.Version 10 release notes:Changes release notes description, does not change data.Version 9 release notes:Adds data for 2019.Version 8 release notes:Fix bug for years 1960-1971 where the number of months reported variable was incorrectly down by 1 month. I recommend caution when using these years as they only report either 0 or 12 months of the year, which differs from every other year in the data. Added the variable officers_killed_total which is the sum of officers_killed_by_felony and officers_killed_by_accident.Version 7 release notes:Adds data from 2018Version 6 release notes:Adds data in the following formats: SPSS and Excel.Changes project name to avoid confusing this data for the ones done by NACJD.Version 5 release notes: Adds data for 1960-1974 and 2017. Note: many columns (including number of female officers) will always have a value of 0 for years prior to 1971. This is because those variables weren't collected prior to 1971. These should be NA, not 0 but I'm keeping it as 0 to be consistent with the raw data. Removes support for .csv and .sav files.Adds a number_of_months_reported variable for each agency-year. A month is considered reported if the month_indicator column for that month has a value of "normal update" or "reported, not data."The formatting of the monthly data has changed from wide to long. This means that each agency-month has a single row. The old data had each agency being a single row with each month-category (e.g. jan_officers_killed_by_felony) being a column. Now there will just be a single column for each category (e.g. officers_killed_by_felony) and the month can be identified in the month column. This also results in most column names changing. As such, be careful when aggregating the monthly data since some variables are the same every month (e.g. number of officers employed is measured annually) so aggregating will be 12 times as high as the real value for those variables. Adds a date column. This date column is always set to the first of the month. It is NOT the date that a crime occurred or was reported. It is only there to make it easier to create time-series graphs that require a date input.All the data in this version was acquired from the FBI as text/DAT files and read into R using the package asciiSetupReader. The FBI also provided a PDF file explaining how to create the setup file to read the data. Both the FBI's PDF and the setup file I made are included in the zip files. Data is the same as from NACJD but using all FBI files makes cleaning easier as all column names are already identical. Version 4 release notes: Add data for 2016.Order rows by year (descending) and ORI.Version 3 release notes: Fix bug where Philadelphia Police Department had incorrect FIPS county code. The LEOKA data sets contain highly detailed data about the number of officers/civilians employed by an agency and how many officers were killed or assaulted. All the data was acquired from the FBI as text/DAT files and read into R using the package asciiSetupReader. The FBI also provided a PDF file explaining how to create the setup file to read the data. Both the FBI's PDF and the setup file I made are included in the zip files. About 7% of all agencies in the data report more officers or civilians than population. As such, I removed the officers/civilians per 1,000 population variables. You should exercise caution if deciding to generate and use these variables yourself. Several agency had impossible large (>15) officer deaths in a single month. For those months I changed the value to NA. The UCR Handbook (https://ucr.fbi.gov/additional-ucr-publications/ucr_handbook.pdf/view) describes the LEOKA data as follows:"The UCR Program collects data from all contributing agencies ... on officer line-of-duty deaths and assaults. Reporting agencies must submit data on ... their own duly sworn officers feloniously or accidentally killed or assaulted in the line of duty. The purpose of this data collection is to identify situations in which

An annual publication in which the FBI provides data on officers feloniously or accidentally killed and officers that were assaulted while performing their duties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States:

"Lists of people killed by nonmilitary law enforcement officers, whether in the line of duty or not, and regardless of reason or method. Inclusion in the lists implies neither wrongdoing nor justification on the part of the person killed or the officer involved. The listing merely documents the occurrence of a death.

The lists below are incomplete, as the annual average number of justifiable homicides alone is estimated to be near 400. Although Congress instructed the Attorney General in 1994 to compile and publish annual statistics on police use of excessive force, this was never carried out, and the FBI does not collect these data either."

An annual publication in which the FBI provides data on officers feloniously or accidentally killed and officers that were assaulted while performing their duties.

Characteristics of law-enforcement-related deaths from The Counted matched and unmatched to National Vital Statistics System mortality records using the National Death Index (US, 2015).