142 Deaths Are Most Since 1997
By Curt Anderson, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks produced the deadliest day in the history of U.S. law enforcement -- 72 officers killed -- yet almost as many died in nonterrorist incidents during 2001 as violence against police rose to a four-year high.
The collapse of the World Trade Center in New York after the twin towers were struck by hijacked airliners accounted for 71 of the 142 law-enforcement officers slain last year, the FBI reported yesterday.
The 72nd victim was a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer who died when a plane commandeered by terrorists crashed in a Pennsylvania field.
Overshadowed by the enormity of those numbers is another statistic: 70 other law-enforcement officers were killed by criminals around the country in 2001, the highest number since 1997 and a 37 percent increase over the 51 slain in 2000.
In addition, the lives of 78 officers were lost in accidents, 64 involving car or motorcycle crashes. That was down from 84 killed in accidents in 2000.
“Law enforcement is a high-risk occupation,” the FBI report says. “The men and women who serve the public in this way place themselves in danger as a matter of routine.”
Still, the nonterrorism deaths are far below those recorded in the 1970s, when it was common for more than 200 officers to die violently or in accidents every year, said Craig Floyd, chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in Washington.
“Fewer police are being killed in the line of duty than there were 30 years ago,” Floyd said. “We’ve got more police on the street than we’ve ever had. They have better training and they’re no longer outgunned by the criminals.”
The statistics, gleaned from 9,688 law-enforcement agencies across the country, show that:
* Police are most likely to be shot to death with a handgun. All but nine of the nonterrorism slayings involved a firearm.
* Night is the most dangerous time for a cop and Friday the most dangerous day. Sunday is the least-violent.
* The South continues to lead the nation in law-enforcement deaths, with 281 since 1992 -- more than twice as many as the next-highest region. Twenty-nine of the 2001 killings happened in the South.
* Two-thirds of police assailants had criminal records or arrests.
In the nonterror killings, 24 of the officers were slain while trying to make arrests, and 14 were killed while they answered disturbance calls. In at least nine cases, the killings happened when an officer tried to help someone in danger, and three were killed while trying to stop assaults.
Seven officers were killed simply because they wore the police badge. In a Pennsylvania case, a 32-year-old officer was slain while making his regular on-foot rounds at a government-subsidized housing complex. One of the two people arrested, and later convicted, had apparently boasted of plans to kill a cop.
Of the nonterror cases, 73 suspects were identified and 52 arrested, although the statistics do not show whether they were convicted of a crime. Ten suspects were shot to death, two by officers who later died themselves. Five police assailants killed themselves.
City police departments accounted for 105 of the fallen officers, with 24 working for county or sheriff’s departments. Three state police officers and four federal law-enforcement agents were killed in 2001.
Of the 71 deaths that happened at the World Trade Center, 37 were officers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department, and 23 were from the New York City Police Department. An FBI agent and a Secret Service agent also died.