by Jamille Lartey
Despite urgent warnings from police and others about a “war on cops” allegedly linked to the Black Lives Matter protest movement, statistics show 2015 is in fact shaping up to be one of the safest years for law enforcement in a generation.
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), which keeps data on officer deaths going back over 100 years, 24 officers have been shot and killed by suspects this year. This puts the US on pace for 36 non-accidental, firearm-related police fatalities in 2015. Each one of such deaths is a tragedy for the officers killed, their families and the communities they serve, but this would be the lowest total in 25 years, aside from 2013 which saw 31 such deaths.
A series of recent high-profile police deaths has sparked much of the rhetoric tying violence against police to anti-police-brutality protesters. On Friday, Harris County sheriff’s deputy Darren Goforth was gunned down from behind while filling his car at a gas station. The suspect, Shannon Miles, was arrested shortly thereafter and charged with capital murder. Miles has a history of severe mental illness and was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in 2012.
Neither Miles, nor any other person suspected of killing a police officer in 2015, has claimed affiliation with the Black Lives Matter movement or any related organization. Still, the attempt to make a connection has persisted as people work to make sense of the senseless killing.
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