By Mary Anderson
The Courier Tribune
WASHINGTON — Since the first recorded police death in 1791, more than 20,000 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty. Currently, 20,538 names are engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The deadliest day in law enforcement history was Sept. 11, 2001, when 72 officers were killed while responding to the terrorist attacks on America.
In the past 10 years, a total of 1,466 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty, an average of 146 per year, but the numbers have been below that average recently. There were 133 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in 2014, according to the Law Enforcement Line of Duty Deaths website. In 2013, 119 officers were killed and 133 in 2012. The numbers include any cause, such as traffic deaths, plane crashes and explosions as well as gunfire.
So far in 2015, 64 officers have died in the line of duty, including two in North Carolina who were involved in traffic accidents. At this same time last year, the number of deaths was 62.
Statistically, the number of officer deaths has declined almost every year after peaking in 1975, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
Deaths in the line of duty are very rare in Randolph, Montgomery and Moore counties.
Moore County lost its first officer in December 2011 when Dep. Rick Rhyne responded to a trespassing call. The shooter, Martin Poynter, then shot himself.
Randolph County lost its first deputy in the line of duty in 1977 in a traffic accident and the second, Dep. Toney Summey, was shot by Alexander Polke when Summey responded to a domestic violence call in April 2003. Polke was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death in January 2005.
In 2014, two Randolph deputies were injured in an exchange of gunfire during a traffic stop. Both recovered and returned to duty. The man who shot them, Jamey Lee Ashley, is serving 85 years in prison.
Montgomery County’s only loss was more than 30 years ago.
People Killed By Police
Estimates vary widely and analysts who collect such information say there is no way to know for sure how many people are killed or who die while in police custody.
According to Wikipedia, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 mandated the Attorney General to collect data on the use of excessive force by police and to publish an annual report from the data. However, the bill lacked provisions for enforcement.
Partly due to the lack of participation from state and local agencies, the Bureau of Justice Statistics stopped keeping count in March 2014.
Two national systems collect data that includes homicides committed by law enforcement officers in the line of duty, but do not claim to have all or accurate information.
The National Center for Health Statistics maintains the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), which aggregates data from locally filed death certificates. State laws require that death certificates be filed with local registrars, but the certificates do not systematically document whether a killing was legally justified nor whether a law enforcement officer was involved.
The FBI maintains the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), which relies on state and local law enforcement agencies voluntarily submitting crime reports. A study of the years 1976 to 1998 found that both national systems underreport justifiable homicides by police officers, but for different reasons. In addition, between 2007 and 2012, more than 550 homicides by the country’s 105 largest law enforcement agencies were missing from FBI records.
The website killedbypolice.com reports 82 deaths so far in 2015 and 1,104 in 2014.
Wikipedia estimates 352 in 2014.
Updated estimates from the Bureau of Justice Statistics released in 2015 estimate the number to be around 930 per year, or 1,240 if assuming that nonreporting local agencies kill people at the same rate as reporting agencies.
The Washington Post tracked only shootings in 2015 and on May 30 reported 385 as of that date, a rate that would be equal to 937 shootings per year.
The Guardian is also tracking killings in 2015 and counted 464 killed as of the end of May.
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