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FBI
In the Line of Duty
Annual
‘Officers Killed’ Report More Than a Tally of Losses
11/26/14
The FBI’s annual Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA)
report that was released earlier this week details in chilling
narratives and statistics how 76 law enforcement officers were killed
in the line of duty in 2013.
While the LEOKA report offers a stark reminder of the dangers police
face every day, the main reason for gathering the comprehensive data
about line-of-duty fatalities, assaults, and accidents is to prevent
them from occurring in the future. In addition to collecting details
about the critical aspects of fatal confrontations and assaults, the
FBI’s LEOKA program conducts extensive research on the data that
eventually gets incorporated into the officer safety awareness training
the FBI provides for partner agencies.
Interviewing Victims and Prisoners
The motivations for killers of law enforcement officers to talk to the
FBI about their cases are as varied as the circumstances that landed
them in prison. Interviews are only conducted if a case has run its
course and appeals have been exhausted. The prison interviews are
unannounced and the only promise to offenders is anonymity. More often
than not, offenders agree to talk on tape about what they did. “We tell
them that we are here to try to help people,” said James Sheets of the
LEOKA program. “And we also tell them that very few people know their
side of the story, and this is a perfect opportunity for them to give
us their side and help us understand why they did what they did.”
For officers who were victims of assaults or witnessed fellow officers
get killed or assaulted, the interviews are a way to help fellow law
enforcement. “Most police officers,” Sheets said, “want to share their
experience—even if it was a mistake—just so others won’t make the same
mistake they did.”
“It’s a three-prong program,” said Brian McAllister, a training
instructor for LEOKA, a unit in the Bureau’s Criminal Justice
Information Services (CJIS) Division. “LEOKA is about data, it’s about
research, and it’s about training.”
The data is collected from participating agencies across the country as
part of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program and is published in
conjunction with Crime in the United States, the FBI’s annual
dissemination of crime statistics. Over the years, researchers led by
the LEOKA program have performed deep-dives into the data and published
research aimed at giving officers a sharper understanding of what types
of scenarios and circumstances have resulted in fatalities and
assaults—and how to avoid them. The research delves well beyond
statistics to include in-depth interviews with officers who were
victims of assaults or involved in incidents that resulted in officer
fatalities. The LEOKA program staff—former police officers—also
interview the perpetrators of police deaths, hoping to provide a window
into what compelled them to make a fatal move on a law enforcement
officer.
For rookie and veteran officers going through LEOKA’s Officer Safety
Awareness Training, it’s these first-hand accounts that bring the job’s
dangers to the fore. “It’s a wake-up call for officers in the class to
see and listen to an interview with an offender who has killed a police
officer,” said McAllister, who conducts some of the interviews in
addition to teaching the eight-hour seminars.
“It makes a huge impact on these guys,” said Lt. Herb Rosenbaum, of the
Trussville Police Department near Birmingham, Alabama. “When we’re out
on the road, we all have a tendency to fall into a routine. You’ve made
a thousand traffic stops and you’ve never been challenged. This brings
it back to the forefront.”
The LEOKA program has released three multi-year studies tailored toward
improving officer safety—Killed in the Line of Duty (1992), In the Line
of Fire (1997), and Violent Encounters (2006). Each zeroed in on a
subset of fatality and assault cases in prior years and looked for
common threads that might illustrate better ways to assess or respond
to a situation.
More recent statistics have shown a significant uptick in ambushes and
unprovoked attacks on police, which prompted the LEOKA program to
embark on a new study in 2013 that will include the unique perspectives
of ambush victims and perpetrators. The study, due out in 2016, is
reviewing cases from 1995 to 2011, looking for general themes of
offender motives and officer perceptions.
Officer Survival Spotlight
LEOKA program staff have been writing a series of research-based
articles about officer safety for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, a
monthly publication for the policing community. The continuing series
is called Officer Survival Spotlight.
- Lessons Learned from Critical Encounters (November 2013)
- Wide-Ranging Benefits of Training (December 2013)
- Officer Perception and Assault Prevention (March 2014)
- Arrest Situations: Understanding the Danger (July 2014)
- Assessing Offender Perceptions (August 2014)
- Circumstances and the Deadly Mix (September 2014)
“We want to figure out why the offenders were doing what they were
doing and how the police officers reacted to see if there’s anything we
can link in the study that would enhance police officer safety,” said
James Sheets, a LEOKA training instructor.
Special Agent Michael Freeman, who coordinates training for the Norfolk
(Virginia) Field Office, said LEOKA training is popular with police
departments and other agencies in his region. He said the sobering
information and first-person accounts help ensure against complacency.
“What adds so much value,” Freeman said, “is receiving the perception
of the offender and why that individual made the decision to challenge
that law enforcement professional.”
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