Gun victimization in the line of duty

Abstract

Results show that (a) most firearm assaults are nonfatal, (b) there is no compelling evidence that the national rate of firearm assault on police has substantially increased during the last 6 years, and (c) there is substantial state-level variation in rates of firearm assault on police officers. Policy Implications: GVA has decided strengths relative to existing data sources on police victimization and danger in policing. We consider the promises and pitfalls of this and other open-source data sets in policing research and recommend that recent state-level improvements in use-of-force data collection be replicated and expanded to include data on violence against police. K E Y W O R D S danger, firearm assault, gun violence, policing After more than 50 years of social science research on policing in the United States, the danger of police work remains a salient feature of police officers' occupational environment (Loftus, 2010; Marenin, 2016; Sierra-Arévalo, 2019). Scholarly attention to the danger of policing has been renewed by recent discussion of a "war on cops" that began after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Proponents of this hypothesized war posit that the contemporary political climate has resulted in widespread distrust and even disdain of police

American Policing and the Danger Imperative

“…In recent years, some have claimed that the United States is in the grip of a "war on cops" characterized by growing disrespect and violence directed at police (Mac Donald 2016). Though scholars have found no evidence of a significant increase in violence toward police in recent years (Shjarback and Maguire 2019;Sierra-Arévalo and Nix 2020;White et al 2019), concerns over officer safety undergird new "Blue Lives Matter" laws that seek increased punishment for attacks on police (Craven 2017). This increased punitiveness is supported by officials at the highest levels of the federal government.…”

“…However, trends in violence against police suggest that policing is growing safer over time. Felonious officer deaths have decreased for half a century (White et al 2019) and recent analyses find no significant change in patterns of fatal or nonfatal assault on police officers (Maguire et al 2017;Shjarback and Maguire 2019;Sierra-Arévalo and Nix 2020). Despite the measurable decrease in line-of-duty death and injury over the past half century, officers' concern with the mortal danger of their work continues to shape police socialization, culture, and practice (Ingram et al 2018;Sierra-Arévalo 2019b).…”

Factors associated with police shooting mortality: A focus on race and a plea for more comprehensive data

“…At the moment, California's URSUS data is the gold standard -it tracks important information such as perceived versus actual weapons possessed by people, where on their bodies victims were shot, non-injurious shootings (i.e., misses), and incidents where people shoot at police officers. [38] Though it is understandable that researchers are leveraging the best available data (e.g., from The Washington Post or Fatal Encounters) to answer pressing policy and public health questions, we must recognize that fatalities are not a random sample of deadly force incidents and exercise more caution in drawing inferences from those data.…”

Assessing the impact of de‐escalation training on police behavior: Reducing police use of force in the Louisville, KY Metro Police Department

“…Although there is limited empirical support for observations of a “war on cops” (e.g., Maguire et al., 2017; Shjarback & Maguire, 2021; Sierra‐Arevalo & Nix, 2020; White, 2020), concerns regarding the risk of injury to police are not unwarranted. For example, analyses of 2014–2019 data from the Gun Violence Archive showed “no compelling evidence that the national rate of firearm assaults on police had substantially increased” (Sierra‐Arevalo & Nix, 2020).…”

“…Although there is limited empirical support for observations of a “war on cops” (e.g., Maguire et al., 2017; Shjarback & Maguire, 2021; Sierra‐Arevalo & Nix, 2020; White, 2020), concerns regarding the risk of injury to police are not unwarranted. For example, analyses of 2014–2019 data from the Gun Violence Archive showed “no compelling evidence that the national rate of firearm assaults on police had substantially increased” (Sierra‐Arevalo & Nix, 2020). However, analyses using data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System—Occupational Supplement showed “a significant upward trend in assault injuries among U.S. law enforcement officers” from 2003 to 2014 (Tiesman et al., 2018).…”