It’s official: There never was a ‘war on cops’

[n2doc]

This year will go down in the record books as one of the safest for police officers in recorded history, according to data released this week from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. There were 42 fatal shootings of police officers in 2015, down 14 percent from 2014, according to the organization.

Overall, 124 officers were killed in the line of duty this year. More than one third of those deaths were due to traffic accidents, the largest single cause of officer fatalities. Thirty other officers died of a variety of other causes, including job-related illnesses.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

The memorial fund's numbers square with figures put together earlier this week by Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, who found that "this year (2015) is on track to be the second-safest year for U.S. police officers in history (0.1112 gun-related police deaths per 1 million population), second only to a slightly safer year in 2013 (0.097 deaths per 1 million)."

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

But they contrast sharply with a narrative we've been hearing about a "war on cops" in the wake of demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere in protest of fatal shootings by police. The narrative has been especially popular among Republican presidential contenders: In September, Chris Christie blamed the Obama administration for "police officers that are being hunted." In October, Mike Huckabee claimed that a "war on cops" was responsible for a "surge in crime" across the country. In November, Ted Cruz held a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing he called "The War on Police" and blamed the Obama administration for creating "a culture where the men and women of law enforcement feel under siege."

more

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/30/its-official-there-never-was-a-war-on-cops/

[valerief]

1. The preposition is wrong. It's a War By Cops. nt

[daleanime]

2. +1

[Igel]

3. The graph for murder overall looks like this.

Police shootings of blacks is down over the years leading up to BLM. And lower than previous decades.

Facts have seldom gotten in the way of hyperbole-loving demagogues and their acolytes.

[valerief]

4. I'm surprised you provided no links to those graphs. nt

[Igel]

5. they've been posted often enough.

Just not perceived.
The numbers for the last year also can't be compared. The reporting jurisdictions were fairly consistent for years but expanded in the last year because of the BLM movement. Hard to know if the murder rates by ethnicity are even valid for recent year-over-year comparison without doing a bunch of processing given how splotchy demographic distribution of ethnicity is.
Will rummage, but I'm doing this on cell phone.

[valerief]

6. The Guardian is counting for us this year.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-map-us-police-killings

But the U.S. govt. doesn't know for sure how many cops killed people.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/one-year-after-ferguson-why-nobody-knows-how-many-people-n405376

I don't know why you brought in BLM. Cops kill all races. They kill when they don't have to and we have a justice system that lets them.