There was a 7.2% jump in assaults on law enforcement officers in 2020, FBI says

By Josh Campbell

More than 60,000 law enforcement officers were assaulted in the line of duty last year, up 7.2% from 2019, according to a report released Monday by the FBI.

Around 30% of the officers sustained injuries, the FBI said.

In a separate report in May, the agency reported that 93 officers were killed in the line of duty last year, including 46 deaths due to felonious acts. That number compared with 48 officers killed in felonious acts in 2019 and 41 killed in accidents.

The FBI report doesn’t include deaths attributed to Covid-19.

However, data gathered by the Officer Down Memorial Page shows that the pandemic has been the leading cause of death among police officers over the past two years.

There were 245 Covid-19 deaths among police officers in 2020. And the number so far this year is 233, according to the website.

The FBI report says that nearly a third of the assaults in 2020 happened as officers responded to a disturbance such as a family quarrel or a bar fight, while 16.1% happened while attempting other arrests and 12.6% happened while transporting or maintaining custody of prisoners.

The report was based on assaults reported to the FBI by 9,895 law enforcement agencies, it said.

The-CNN-Wire
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