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FACT BRIEF

Has the number of police officers killed in the line of duty been atypically high in 2020?

Thursday, October 22, 2020
By Esther Honig
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NO

As of Oct. 21, 2020, the FBI reports that 41 officers had been killed in the line of duty in 2020 due to felonious violence. This represents a 24% increase over the same period last year. The number does not include accidental deaths on the job, such as those caused by traffic accidents.

In all of 2019, 49 officers were killed. Between 2009 and 2018, an average of 51 officers were killed annually. The highest number during those 10 years was in 2011, when 72 officers were killed. In 2016, 66 officers were killed.

A recent study in the Journal of Criminology and Public Policy, using historic FBI data, concludes that the dangers of policing have declined dramatically since the 1970s. The last five decades have seen a 75% drop in the number of police officers killed in the line of duty.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
FBI Crime Data Explorer: Law enforcement officer deaths (2020 year-to-date)
FBI: 'LEOKA' reports of officers killed and assaulted (1996-2019)
Florida Atlantic University: It's safer to be a cop in the US today than 50 years ago
Wiley Online: Journal of Criminology and Public Policy—Assessing dangerousness in policing
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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.