Remember that fear mongering from last year?
“Which one?” you might say.
The one about more police officer getting killed? Forty officers were shot and killed in 2008. In 2011 that number increased to 67! Even the New York Times go in the act: “72 officers were killed by perpetrators in 2011, a 25 percent increase from the previous year and a 75 percent increase from 2008.” There was lots of talk about a new environment in which criminals felt more “emboldened” to assault law enforcement officers.
I was asked about this a few times last year and said bullshit (I wasn’t quoted). It was probably just a statistical spike (albeit one with a lot of dead police officers on the end of it). Part of the reason I didn’t think this was a trend was that in 2007, 66 officers were shot and killed. Maybe 2008 was the aberration.
Well the good news is that the number of officers shot and killed went down from 67 in 2011 to 47 in 2012. Sometimes it’s best to just be lucky.
Update: Three offices were shotand injured last night in NYC.