By Megan Guza
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
PITTSBURGH — The slayings of more than 20 police officers this year — including four in the past nine days — have turned national attention toward the risks of policing and an “us against them” mentality, amid an outcry in many cities accusing police of excessive use of deadly force.
Still, police deaths by gunfire are down in 2015, according to Steve Groeninger, spokesman for the nonprofit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
“The last week has not been what I would call normal, by any means,” he said.
An officer in Fox Lake, Ill., was fatally shot Tuesday morning while pursuing three suspects. No one has been arrested in his slaying.
A deputy sheriff was gunned down “execution-style” Friday while pumping gas in Texas. In Sunset, La., a suspect fatally shot an officer Aug. 26 when he responded to a report of multiple stabbings. On Aug. 24, a Louisiana state trooper was fatally shot when he stopped a suspected intoxicated driver.
“They wear a police uniform, and that makes them a target,” said Ron Freeman, a retired Pittsburgh homicide detective.
“I don’t know why people do what they do,” said Penn Hills police Chief Howard Burton. He blames an “us against them mentality, that police are all wrong, that police are shooting unarmed people” for fueling anger toward police.
Ambush shootings of police officers have occurred for decades, sometimes by individuals “looking for their 15 minutes of fame,” said Dennis Giever, a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. A rash of such shootings makes it tough to recruit officers, he said.
“It’s not necessarily a new thing, but I think there’s a heightened awareness,” Giever said. “There’s more public awareness of it right now.”
Such killings were brought to the forefront since controversy and protests in Ferguson, Mo., after the Aug. 9, 2014, killing of Michael Brown, a black teenager, by a white police officer, Giever said. In March, police arrested a 20-year-old man from the St. Louis area in connection with the shooting of two police officers during a protest in Ferguson; the officers survived.
Among officers killed on duty in Western Pennsylvania in recent years, Patrolman Derek Kotecki of Lower Burrell was shot and killed while investigating reports of a wanted man at a fast-food restaurant. Penn Hills Officer Michael Crawshaw was killed in his patrol car in 2009 while responding to a call.
“It’s easy to shoot a police man or woman because they’re wearing the uniform,” Burton said. “They’re easy to pick out. They’re a target.”
Yet policing remains statistically safer now than in the past.
FBI figures show 51 law enforcement officers were “feloniously killed” on duty in 2014. Though that is a marked increase from 2013, when 27 officers were killed on the job, the bureau notes that that number was the lowest in more than three decades. An average of 50 officers have been killed while working each year for more than a decade — about half the average of the 1970s.
Groeninger said taking into account a decade’s worth of data, an officer is killed in the line of duty every 60 hours. The past week was closer to every 26 hours.
Freeman said the police slayings could have a chilling effect on officers.
“They’re not as proactive,” he said. “Some — not all, but some — have told me they’re not as proactive as they used to be. One reason is there’s apparently a war on police now. They’re becoming targets more and more. It’s almost a daily issue now. That creates an issue where officers don’t want to put themselves in those positions.”
Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay said he sees no indication “that the officers are slowing down.”
His officers know that police can be targeted, McLay said, but they continue to take part in community-oriented policing programs designed to improve relations with city residents.
“Are police officers in Pittsburgh aware that there’s this national trend? Absolutely,” McLay said. “Does it weigh heavily on our minds when we’re doing our jobs? Of course it does.” But he said the outreach effort “improves our relationship with the community and it also makes us safer.”
In April, someone fired shots in the direction of two officers in Homewood. McLay said the department does not know whether the officers were intended targets.
In 2009, Richard Poplawski ambushed city police, killing three who answered a call about a domestic dispute at his mother’s Stanton Heights home. She had called requesting her son’s removal from the house.
“Officers always have to be mindful of the potential for harm in the community, but not be overcome by our community’s potential to do us harm,” McLay said. “I think our officers do a really good job of keeping this in perspective.”
Just shy of one year ago, a Pennsylvania State Police trooper was killed and another injured when suspect Eric Frein ambushed them outside the barracks in Blooming Grove in Pike County on Sept. 12. Frein killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and wounded Trooper Alex Douglass, sparking a 48-day manhunt across northeastern Pennsylvania. Frein’s attorneys in July asked to continue his trial until September.
In Allegheny County, a portion of the Parkway West is named for Corporal Joseph Pokorny, a state police trooper who was shot and killed during a short pursuit near a Carnegie exit ramp in 2005.
Burton said it’s difficult for a chief to explain to new hires “what I expect from them” balanced by the fact that “the people out there are not their enemies.”
Darren Goforth, the deputy sheriff killed in Texas, was filling his patrol car at a gas station when ambushed. Most officers know that responding to a call “can be dangerous,” Burton said. “But to stand there and be pumping gas… That’s what (officers) are going to get paranoid about.”
Copyright 2015 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review