Peace Officer Memorial Week and Last Year’s Losses

Every May, memorial ceremonies are held throughout the country for officers we have lost in the line of duty over the past year at the local, state, and national levels.

The biggest ceremony is in Washington, D.C., following several days of events. The culmination is the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial ceremony. I understand it is an event to be experienced.

Categorized

Deaths of working cops are divided into two (2) categories. Felonious and accidental. Arguably, there can be a third category – suicide. It can and probably should be discussed. I will note that known of the deaths known to be suicides at my old organization have been identified as Line of Duty.  The difference between the two:

• A felonious peace officer (PO) death is an incident where a PO, while engaged in their duty performance, was fatally injured as a direct result of a willful and intentional act by an offender(s). (3)
• An accidental PO death is an incident where a PO was fatally injured due to an accident or negligence that occurred while acting in an official capacity. Due to law enforcement’s hazardous nature, PO deaths are considered accidental if the cause of death is not found to be a willful and intentional act of another or others. (4)

Now, looking back to last year, this comes from the data shared by the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) in their report dated 01/02/205.

Numbers

342 officers were shot in 2024. That is down 9% from 2023 and up 3% from 2022. Those shootings resulted in the deaths of fifty (50) officers – an 8% increase from the year before but down 19% from 2022.

What year had the most officers shot? 2023. During that year, a total of 378 were shot.

Within those numbers is the sub-set from ambush attacks. FOP identified 61 ambush-style attacks on officers. That term is “defined as when an officer is struck by gunfire without any warning or opportunity to defend themselves.”

18 officers were killed in those attacks out of the 79 who had been shot. And, as noted in the report, “the number of ambush-style attacks listed does not include the countless incidents where an officer was shot at but not struck by gunfire during an ambush-style attack.”

While no officers from Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, USVI, and Guam lost their lives, thirty-two Texas officers were killed. The remaining states each had single- or double-digit losses.

Let’s look at California and its numbers. I am using information from the crew at LEOKA.org – Ed Deuel, Rich Wemmer, Marcus Young, Chuck Moorman, and Ken Impellizeri. Over my career, I met and took classes from at least two of them. Sidebar: If you aren’t familiar with Marcus Young, do a web search for his event at the Ukiah, CA, Walmart.

While nationally, the number of line-of-duty deaths increased by 25% during 2024, they decreased in California, with only one officer losing their life in the state.

2025 So Far

Well, from January 1st through April 21st, 2025, the numbers are better. I don’t know if “encouraging” would be the word. Total fatalities went from 56 to 24, -57%. Deaths involving firearms dropped 35%, going from 17 to 11. Those stemming from traffic-related events (nearly always higher than gunfire) have gone from 18 to 9, a 50% reduction.

In the Other Causes category, deaths decreased significantly, from 21 to 4.

The Other Guy’s Vehicle

Recently, a local agency commemorated the murder of one of their sergeants. He was intentionally run over by a truck driver fleeing from a vehicle stop. Seriously, now is the time to consider what you realistically can and can’t do yourself to stop any vehicle.

Reading

Several solid, well-done reports from the US Department of Justice and the FBI’s LEOKA program—especially the three-part LEOKA set—are available. These include interviews with the suspects; those alone are worth the time spent reading them.

And, if you have not read “Left of Bang” by Patrick VanHorne and you are teaching in the officer survival area, you need to. Being aware of what is going on around you with the subjects you are dealing with puts you ahead of the curve. Even a minimal warning can radically change the outcome of the event.

Training

Once you have the information covered in the publications above, begin putting it into practice. Along with that, get training on working from and around your patrol vehicle. A lot of it doesn’t have to be live fire. You can drill most of these skills dry – in the station’s parking lot with a blue gun or an unloaded, cleared pistol.

Can you draw with your seatbelt off? On? What are the snag hazards inside the vehicle, for your pistol, for you? If you’re a right-handed FTO, what about drawing and having to open the door? Likewise, you’re left-handed and the driver.

When you remove your long gun from the rack, does it hang up? Is the sling snagging?

Then, there is getting out of your vehicle in non-traditional ways.

Not everything happens at the car, what could happen at the restaurant or coffee shop you frequent?

Closing Thoughts

Take the time to learn the lessons paid for in blood by those who wore the uniform before you. Honor them by applying those lessons. If your agency or one nearby had an officer murdered, find out the facts and share them with the next generation. Ensure those officers are not forgotten.

Then, you can go back to D.C. for Police Week.

RESOURCES:

FBI’s 2024 LEOKA report

FOP 2024 Report

FBI Assailant Mindset & Behavior report

DOJ Ambushes of Police report

DOJ & NLEOMF Report of L/E Deaths from ’00-’16