FBI stats reveal killings of police officers surged in 2014
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released statistics Monday saying that 51 police officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2014.
According to the preliminary figures, that number is an 89 percent increase compared to the 27 officers killed in 2013. The report also notes that 2013 saw a dramatic drop to a 35-year low mark since 1980. In the years since then 64 law enforcement officers were killed annually in the line of duty.
Of those 51 law enforcement deaths in 2014, 11 came after disturbance calls, 10 after traffic stops or pursuits and eight from ambushes.
The numbers come after Hattiesburg, Mississippi, lost its first officers in the line of duty in decades. Officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate were killed after making a traffic stop Saturday.
"The men and women who go out every day to protect us, the men and women who go out every day to make sure that we're safe, they were turned on tonight," the mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi said of that deadly incident.
The FBI's latest figures don't include Deen and Tate, as their deaths took place this year. Still, police deaths in the line of duty - especially amid tensions across the country - highlight the difficulties of the job.
The FBI also released data about the geographic regions in which the fatal incidents occurred, revealing 17 officers died in the South, 14 officers in the West, eight officers in the Midwest, eight in the Northeast, and four in Puerto Rico.
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