At least 10 police officers in five states — mostly in big cities — have been attacked in the last eight days. What’s especially troubling is that several of the incidents appeared to target police officers specifically.
Both criminal justice reform advocates and police unions blame the same thing: a violent crime crisis. Reformers think the violent crime spree is the result of inequality and police brutality. The cops think it’s due to lax prosecutors and spineless politicians.
Whatever the reason, the number of lives lost is rising.
Two officers died after a shooting in New York City last Friday, two were shot near St. Louis on Wednesday, three were injured in Houston on Thursday and two law enforcement officers were shot in Milwaukee, each on different days. And on Friday, a Kentucky State Police trooper was wounded by gunfire.
Union leaders quickly attributed the attacks to the rise in anti-police sentiment driven by hysterical rhetoric from Black Lives Matter and politicians. There is little argument that this sort of rhetoric makes policing more dangerous, but does it make attacks more likely?
Reform advocates blame the “overall rise in violent crime.”
“The rise in police being shot by community members is coinciding with the overall rise in violent crime,” said Howard Henderson, the founding director of the Center for Justice Research. The research program at Texas Southern University examines how to make the criminal justice system more equitable.
“Police happen to be some of the victims” in an ongoing “crime wave,” Henderson said.
It must be comforting to be so blind.
In fact, many experts cite the anti-police attitude as a primary cause of the uptick in violence against police.
Some experts have previously expressed similar concerns about anti-police sentiment: “Right now, we are seeing it all over the country, total disrespect of police officers,” Maria “Maki” Haberfeld, a professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York told The USA TODAY Network.
“To me, policing is one of the pillars of a democratic society. When people start attacking police, it is the end of democracy,” Haberfeld said.
But it’s too soon to tell whether the recent rash of high-profile incidents is the beginning of a new, upward trend, Nix said. Historical data shows violence against police often dramatically ebbs and flows month-by-month.
That may be true, but January has been a nightmare for the families of police officers. No fewer than 24 officers were shot, four of whom were killed.
Those deaths include two New York City police officers and a Harris County constable in Texas who died by gunfire while on duty, according to their respective departments.
By comparison, in all of the month of January in 2020 and 2021, 17 police officers were shot, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The number of officers killed by a gun increased 36% from 2020, with 62 deaths in 2021. Reform advocates claim the violent crime is being stoked by “inequality”; do they expect us to believe that anti-police rhetoric plays no part?
Related: Studies Show That Anti-Police Protests Have Led to Rise in Violent Crime
Until we can come to terms with the constant barrage of hysterical and exaggerated rhetoric causing the increase in violence directed at police, the job of being a cop will only get more dangerous.
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