Of the 73 police officers feloniously killed in the line of duty last year, 24 were killed in unprovoked attacks, according to FBI data released earlier this month.
Data released by the bureau last month showed that felonious officer killings reached a 20-year high in 2021 as the homicide rate soared. The FBI defines a felonious killing as an incident “in which an officer, while engaged in or on account of the performance of their official duties, was fatally injured as a direct result of a willful and intentional act by an offender.”
Twenty-four of the officers were killed in unprovoked attacks that came out of nowhere or with no prior warning, according to updated data released May 9 and reviewed by National Review. of those, eight officers were ambushed in premeditated killings.
Sixty-one of the officers who were feloniously killed were shot. Nine of the alleged killers were “under judicial supervision” at the time of the attacks, and 20 were prior offenders.
A spokesperson for the National Police Association told Fox News that “one of the reasons that we’re seeing this huge uptick in officer ambushes, unprovoked attacks, is because there is this pervasive false information in the media, by activists, by some politicians, that police officers are a danger to the community.”
Spokesperson Betsy Brantner Smith, a 29-year police veteran who trains officers, said that false information is one of the “biggest, most ignored officer safety components in this country right now.”
Updated FBI data released last month revealed the average age of the officers feloniously killed last year was 39, while the average length of service with a law enforcement agency was 12 years. Sixty-eight of the officers were male and five were female. Additionally, 60 of the slain officers were white and nine were black, while race was not reported for four of the officers.
Among officers who were not killed in unprovoked attacks, nine died as a result of investigative law enforcement activities, including four deaths that involved surveillance, two that involved traffic stops, one that responded to an active shooter, one involved in an undercover investigation and another investigating a wanted person.
Other felonious killings occurred while police were entrapped, involved in vehicular or foot pursuits, responding to disturbances, involved in tactical situations, involved in arrests, responding to active crimes, assisting law enforcement officers, trying to serve a court order, or deploying equipment.
The 20-year high in felonious killings came as several cities broke their homicide records last year, including Portland, Ore.; Toledo, Ohio; Rochester, N.Y.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Columbus, Ohio; Baton Rouge, La.; Austin, Texas; Albuquerque, N.M.; Tucson, Ariz.; Louisville, Ky.; and St. Paul, Minn.
Experts said that staffing shortages from police retirements and resignations driven by a wave of anti-police sentiment, as well as bail reform, declining arrests, and hardships from the pandemic coalesced last year to create a climate of increased crime around the country.