Local law enforcement on edge following nationwide police shootings

Police are on high alert after four officers were shot Sunday in incidents around the country. Sixty law enforcement officers have been shot and killed this year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Shootings in 2016 have exceeded the number of firearms-related police deaths in all of 2015. According to the fund, firearms were responsible for 41 of 123 officer fatalities in 2015.

“There is a lot of animosity for law enforcement right now,” Sgt. Tony Glenn, with the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, said. “It is something we are always aware of, but in light of recent events that has definitely peaked.”

Sgt. Glenn has been with the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office for 12 years. He says the threat each and every day is real, more so now than ever before.

“There is definitely an increase in the crime against officers,” Sgt. Glenn said. “I don’t know if it an increase in media attention, or what the reasoning is nationwide, but it is something affecting the nation and law enforcement.”

Every call is dangerous. Sgt. Glenn says law enforcement officers never know what they are walking into. Take what happened to an officer in Lewiston earlier this week, when a man came out of a trunk armed with what appeared to be a gun during a traffic stop.

“There have been a lot of events happening with police agencies across the nation in the past few months that have been quite horrific and have shown a propensity of violence towards police,” Lewiston Police Chief Chris Ankeny said. “This incident shows that it can happen right in our backyard.”

The threat facing law enforcement doesn’t just come from those with firearms, according to Chief Ankeny. Ankeny said anything a criminal can get a hold of can be used as a weapon. In Utah earlier this month, three men hit a West Valley City officer with a car while he was deploying stop sticks. The impact killed the officer.

Dying on the job is not something officers care to think much about.

“Not coming home is not an option for us. That is not the way we train,” Sgt. Glenn said. “That is not the way we think. Granted, all of us know that is a possibility but that is not something we leave our house thinking about daily.”

The decade’s highest total of officers killed by gunfire came in 2011, with 73 officers shot dead.