You mean Beck’s actually helping accomplish something useful? Maybe the Tea Party types aren’t as worthless as I thought.

Last year, on-duty officer deaths hit a 50-year low. So what’s behind the increase?

You just explained it, IMO. Returning to the mean. Not that shocking. Everything else is just rent seeking/power seeking bullshit.

BTW, motor vehicle fatality rates for the same period ranged between 0.9 and 1.7 per 100k for the same period.

in response to the CONTINUED brutal and senseless attacks on the public by the police.

Idiots unable to understand why violence against cops is up are most likely also confused as to why the USA is a target of terrorists. Hint: it has more to do with our foreign policy than our freedom.

That is true, but there are degrees. The guy who stand idly by why a cop abuses a suspect is wrong. But he’s LESS wrong than the guy doing the abusing. Both deserve punishment, but I would say there is at least hope of redemption for the former. Not necessarily as an LEO, but at least as a person.

Stop killing us for no reason and we’ll stop killing you…how’s that for an idea? Still waiting to see if this story illicits any emotion other than a “meh”………nope. Still a “meh.” I’ll save my pity and concern for those who actually deserve it.

A “good” cop who actively covers for bad cops, is a BAD cop.

A “good” cop who merely looks the other way and doesn’t speak up in the face of cop misconduct, is also a BAD cop.

I wonder how many of those dead cops were killed because of nonsensical policies that intentionally escalate confrontations into violent events. You know, the kind of stories that cause much of that “scathing criticism” of cops on the Internet

And are dismissed by the department spokesman as “standard procedure”.

“For example, it wouldn’t be difficult to envision a politician using O’Donnell’s quote to defend a policy of a arresting and imprisoning people who take cell phone videos of on-duty police officers.”

The problem with even writing this is that somewhere some “defender of liberty” lawmaker might actually say “Yeah, why didn’t I think of that myself”

The figures are comparable and show similar statistical variations. (Interesting, there has been a roughly 2/3 drop in numbers over the last 50 years. Do Americans have less spark nowadays?) :)

Two years ago, the figure was remarkably low – dropping from over 100 the year before down to under 60. Did the NLEOMF people come out then and say “gosh, people are being nice to cops”?

After a slight rise to 61 last year, the figure bumped up to 87, but this is only slightly above the overall downward trend line and appears to lie near or within two standard deviations of the mean. The change meaningless given the small number of events.

The NLEOMF needs to get a “bullshit” call on this one.

Absolutely. Especially considering 4 of those deaths occured in one incident (Maurice Clemmons here in my neck of the woods).

On the other hand, the 2 officers shot in January in Seattle (1 killed, 1 wounded) were shot by a man who explicitly targeted the police for their abuses of power and brutality.

I don’t have any evidence for these assertions mind you, but it’s the most plausible explanation.