How often do police die in the line of duty, and how big a deal is made of it?

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No-Lunch4249@reddit

FWIW this is a misrepresentation I see a lot.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics lumps all commercial drivers together under the same occupation, the pizza delivery guy and an Alaskan Ice Road long-haul trucker are the same profession their eyes

So, while it's true that law enforcement doesn't even crack the top 10 most dangerous jobs to have in the US, it's also a bit unfair to categorize "delivery drivers" as more dangerous than being a cop

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AwesomeOrca@reddit

Cars are stupid dangerous. The vast majority of police deaths and injuries are auto related as well.

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pohart@reddit

And IIRC an inordinate number involve alcohol

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No-Lunch4249@reddit

I dont deny that. Pretty much the most dangerous thing an average American does on a weekly, if not daily, basis is drive a car

In 2023, 47 officers were killed by gunfire, 37 died in traffic-related incidents, and 52 died from “other causes.” That last category does a lot of heavy lifting. When you dig into it, lots of those deaths are actually officers being struck by cars while on foot or directing/controlling traffic.

I'm just saying that flavoring all commercial drivers as "delivery drivers" is disingenuous. It's a common internet characterization of the numbers I see that is very misleading and leads to people saying things like "pizza delivery is more dangerous than being a cop" which isn't how the BLS, the authoritative record keeper in the US, even tracks it or breaks it down

Not trying to downplay how much more dangerous professions like driving, farming, fishing, logging, and construction are than law enforcement.

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Heavy_Gap_5047@reddit

A lack of specific statistics on the corollary isn't evidence that the corollary is untrue.

Is being a pizza delivery is more dangerous than being a cop. I don't know for sure, but probably.

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YourGuyK@reddit

Being a cop isn't a top 10 "deadly" job. Neither is being a firefighter, but no one would argue that it's not a very dangerous job.

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SabresBills69@reddit

That stat is generally viewed as deaths from driving. Cops shot when they ate outside a vehicle are different

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shadowmib@reddit

A lot of uber/lift/taxi etc drivers get shot /stabbed and robbed. Truck drivers also get shot/stabbed in addition to fatality wrecks usually caused by car drivers, or catastrophic mechanical failures.

Most of them time we arent allowed the tools to defend ourselves like cops are.

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Do you think cops should also be divided into different categories? A detective doing mostly desk work is a lot different than a swat team guy serving high risk warrants or an officer patrolling a high crime area, no?

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Ok-Business5033@reddit

I personally think that all of these "studies" are just dumb. No career is directly comparable to another.

A cop serving a warrant on someone who killed another cop is a lot different than even another cop doing traffic- or Uber driver getting robbed.

People hate nuance though so my logical way of thinking will never take off lol.

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Ok-Business5033@reddit

It's also just a dumb comparison. These are insanely different jobs.

Focusing on death only, a cop dying is pretty rare. When it happens, it's because it was likely overwhelming force or ambush or something.

So if a cop, who has training, equipment and backup dies- it's likely a pretty crazy situation.

If you want to be mentally scarred for life, go ahead and look at Justin Hare, Darian Jarrott or Jonah Hernandez. They were brutally executed on the job- those kinds of situations just don't happen for an Uber driver.

When someone pulls a gun on a cop they're trying to kill them. When someone pulls a gun on a pizza driver they're trying to rob them. I mean, it's just fundamentally different.

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Ugly4merican@reddit

the pizza delivery guy and an Alaskan Ice Road long-haul trucker are the same profession their eyes

MillionFoul@reddit

Neither statistic differentiates fault of the accident, delivery drivers cause accidents all the time, too.

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Heavy_Gap_5047@reddit

Sure but delivery drivers don't race around at 150mph and CDL holders are statistically very safe drivers.

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MillionFoul@reddit

Well, they shouldn't race around at 150 mph, just like cops should know well enough what speed is appropriate for the conditions and circumstances they're in, but we are talking about accidents.

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Heavy_Gap_5047@reddit

They shouldn't but they do, and there's no such thing as an accident, they're collisions and all result from some form of negligence.

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imbrickedup_@reddit

You have it backwards. The reason you don’t hear about cops getting shot is BECAUSE they are quick to draw guns.

https://youtu.be/aGWReyuqEmE?si=4NUJof2_n8DZj6lW

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TruDuddyB@reddit

No that's what I said before

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Enformational@reddit

So you agree death isn’t the only outcome of danger… sounds like you agree with me then… lol

You dont know what a strawman argument is.

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Enformational@reddit

The person that responded to me said “acting like police get injured and others don’t is disingenuous”.

I never made that argument - that is a straw man. He is distorting my original comment to insinuate I made that argument

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Redwings1927@reddit

Yea, because you did argue that point. You argued that because it didn't record injuries and only deaths, it was a flawed statistic. This means that you are arguing that injuries happen to police officers significantly more often than those other industries. Enough that it would skew the statistics by a significant margin.

This implies either:

A) you believe that those industries on top of the death list do not have a significant number of injuries outside of fatal injuries.

Or

B) You believe that police officers get injured at such a high rate that it would drastically impact the data.

I only addressed one of those, but without one or both of these things, your argument has no substance. And both are demonstrably inaccurate.

It's not a strawman. It's just working your logic backward. Either way, i stand by my statement.

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Enformational@reddit

You’re wrong. I’m arguing that the fatality statistics used by original user aren’t the only way to measure danger in a job. I used police officers surviving gunshots as an example. If you interpreted that as me arguing that police officers get injured more than others, then that is a straw man, because I didn’t make that argument. The reason I didn’t make that argument is because I haven’t seen those numbers.

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Redwings1927@reddit

I’m arguing that the fatality statistics used by original user aren’t the only way to measure danger

Unless you're including financial harm or loss in your definition, which would be stupid, especially contextually since police carry zero financial risk, then the only way to measure danger is to calculate approximate death and injury rates.

So if you aren't arguing either of the 2 points from my last comment, then you aren't arguing anything and are just screaming into the void about how your feelings are more important than reality.

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Enformational@reddit

What are you talking about? Financial harm? wtf?

My point is that using only one measurement of danger (death) is not enough to definitively conclude one industry is more dangerous than another.

“a fatality rate alone is insufficient to definitively conclude one industry is more dangerous than another because "danger" can be defined in multiple ways, and rates can be influenced by factors like the number of hours worked, workplace size, and the type of injuries measured (e.g., fatalities vs. nonfatal injuries). While a high fatality rate indicates a greater likelihood of a fatal injury, considering other metrics like nonfatal injury rates, incident rates involving days away from work, or the absolute number of fatalities provides a more comprehensive understanding of an industry's overall danger”

The mental gymnastics you are using to attribute to me an argument I didn’t make are WILD

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Redwings1927@reddit

It isn't my fault you dont understand what the words you use mean.

While a high fatality rate indicates a greater likelihood of a fatal injury, considering other metrics like nonfatal injury rates, incident rates involving days away from work,

This is EXACTLY what you argued before. I said you were wrong, and then you complained that that isn't what you meant. Make up your mind.

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Enformational@reddit

You are changing your argument!! LOL You said I argued that police jobs were more dangerous than other jobs. I never made that argument, yet you said I did….

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Redwings1927@reddit

A direct quote from my second comment. (The one where i stated what your argument is)

"Yea, because you did argue that point. You argued that because it didn't record injuries and only deaths, it was a flawed statistic."

I then followed your logic, to state the following.

"This means that you are arguing that injuries happen to police officers significantly more often than those other industries."

Because you aupported your initial statement by saying directly that police officers survivng a gunshot wound wasnt considered.

Again, its not my fault you dont understand the words you use.

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Enformational@reddit

My entire argument isn’t that it’s a flawed statistic. The argument is that it isn’t the only consideration when declaring “most dangerous job”.

I used tue police officer getting shot as an EXAMPLE. Nowhere did I say police officers get injured more.

Let me help you understand a little better: dog trainers getting bit by their dogs isn’t considered or measured on the “danger scale” if we are only using “fatalities” to measure danger.

Are you now going to claim I am arguing that dog trainers have more injuries than construction workers?

Do you see how silly your logic is by the giant leaps/assumptions you are making ?

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Redwings1927@reddit

My entire argument isn’t that it’s a flawed statistic. The argument is that it isn’t the only consideration when declaring “most dangerous job”.

These two things mean the same thing. You either mean both or neither. You can't argue one without the other. If the injuries are significant enough to sway the data, then the data is flawed. If they aren't, then they aren't really a significant consideration.

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Enformational@reddit

The fatality statistic isn’t a flawed statistic… it does a good job articulating fatality rates within the industries it measured.

The way that statistic was used by the original user to conclude “the most dangerous job” is where the flaw occurs. As I mentioned previously, there are many metrics that can measure the dangerousness of a job (outside of the fatality rate)

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NoKindnessIsWasted@reddit

Then teaching is more dangerous. They are attacked more often than cops.

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Enformational@reddit

Source?

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glittervector@reddit

Ask any high school teacher. They all know multiple friends who have been assaulted by students or parents.

You don’t hear about it because they don’t go whining to the police and file charges to run the lives of the people they’re serving.

Cops rarely get assaulted because everyone knows that they’ll get severely punished for looking at them wrong since they’re babies that need to punish every perceived transgression to the maximum extent.

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Enformational@reddit

Yikes… I’ll just leave this:

What correlation are you trying to make? All I'm saying that looking at only the fatality numbers isn't the best way to say how dangerous a job is. I mean that's just true.

You also have to look at the fact that police are literally called to dangerous situations because they are the police. No one is calling a delivery driver to deal with the guy high on meth waving a knife around. Police training and tactics can help mitigate the danger somewhat, but that doesn't mean the situation isn't dangerous in and of itself. Just because an incident ended with no injuries or fatalities doesn't make that incident not dangerous.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make other than to be purposefully obtuse.

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Appropriate-Food1757@reddit

What would be true then?

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awake30@reddit

No, all I'm saying is that policing is a dangerous job. And policing is a special case, because police are called to the dangerous situations and have training for them. I'm willing to bet plenty of other professions' accidents and injuries are from something that could have been avoided with safety practices or planned for. You don't get that with policing. You go to the situation you are called to, because someone has to. It can't be ignored.

When people say things like "policing isn't even in the top 10 blah blah blah" they're generally trying to imply that policing isn't dangerous. That's what I'm talking about.

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glittervector@reddit

But it’s not dangerous. It’s just not.

Especially if you do what any good statistician would do and weight the jobs by volume and population.

You’re trying to glamorize and valorize police work, which is not only lame in the first place, but you’re using a really bad set of data that doesn’t support your point.

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awake30@reddit

No, I'm not trying to glamorize it. You're just flat out wrong.

Literally the other day officers near me were called to deal with a suicidal guy shooting a rifle in an apartment building. What other job is called to deal with something like that?

Not to mention dealing with traffic accidents all the time where you're standing on the road having to deal with other people driving by.

You're just flat out wrong and you don't know any better because you don't have personal experience. I do, and you're just straight up wrong. Plenty of small interactions that are dangerous that never make the news happen all the time and you'll never know about them.

awake30@reddit

When you're dealing with people you can never make it fully safe.

Electricians can use gloves and shut off the power, roofers can use their harnesses, but dealing with people is different.

My point is that using only one measurement of danger (death) is not enough to definitively conclude one industry is more dangerous than another.

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idredd@reddit

It took folks a long time to come up with an argument for why this data isn’t real but inevitably they found their nitpick. The presentation of police work as super dangerous is a tool shaped to make us worship cops in spite of their transgressions and failures.

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Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit

And how often is your life in danger on your job?

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idredd@reddit

I’ve had guns pulled on me due to my job. I’ve had my life at risk due to my job. I’ve been actively targeted by dangerous people as a result of my job.

None of this has driven me to expect/desire the incessant boot licking America gives cops in exchange for oppression.

Firefighters frequently are not paid. Firefighters run into burning buildings to save people. Firefighters work their asses off keeping communities from burning down.

Police officers don’t have an obligation to protect you and frequently can’t be bothered. Police have extremely high rates of domestic violence. Police officers have a history of shooting innocent people and facing no consequences for it.

I don't wish to egg on pro/anti law enforcement arguments because I disdain politics, but I would like to know: do you have an opinion on say, truckers and taxi drivers? Delivery people? Etc.

I generally see transportation / travel based work as honorable professions. I might not call them "heroic", because they rarely offer the opportunity for notoriety or sudden glory compared to say, dying in combat, or dying while rescuing someone from a burning building. In spite of that missing that pinnacle, I do still hold jobs that equate to "just driving around a lot" in an excessively high regard because it is honest and patriotic work that requires consistency and dedication; it's work that is necessary.

It is very alluring, popular, and outright expected for people to degrade themselves into sell drugs, selling their bodies, scamming old people, grifting others online, etc. but, people who go into trucking and the like actively choose to do a job that is in constant demand, has lower paid, is highly regulated, and is desperately necessary to keeping the entire world functioning to the pace it is operating at.

Similarly, someone who is part of a crew on a boat, or on an airline might, "just be traveling a bunch" and not necessarily doing something that implies a lot of chances for heroism, but...do you still appreciate that this kind of travel-based work is performed? Or do you see it all as worthless? Or something else?

I'm not trying to "get you" with examples; I hate when people do that! I only hope that you don't discount an entire type of occupation, simply because you determined people who do it are having lived a lesser lives, or having died in a manner you deem to be, I don't know; pointless and irrelevant?

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CadenVanV@reddit

About 13 per 100,000 a year. 167 total in 2024. It’s not national news when they die but it’s usually big news in the state where they’re from and they’ll get some bridge or stretch of road named after them. It’s only national news when a federal cop, like a member of the FBI, dies, because then there’s a national manhunt, or when a cop dies in a high profile news story.

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Tygrkatt@reddit

The Police department in my county hasn't had a Line of Duty Death since 197...8? 9? There have been some close calls recently, but with luck and excellent trauma hospitals, everyone has made it. I don't know how typical that is though.

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Meowmeowmeow31@reddit

Typically, it makes local or state news, unless there’s something really unusual about the case.

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accidental_Ocelot@reddit

two police officers in northern Utah were kill recently and they had a motorcade procession of police cars it seemed like a lot but they shut down something like 70 miles of freeway for this procession which really cocked up traffic for everyone.

It's typically like 50 die feloniously annually.

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132And8ush@reddit

I like the ODMP statistics, they categorize the deaths a lot better and differentiate well between suicides and inadvertent gunfire, accidents, etc.

Absolutely incorrect. Sometimes it does if it's a particularly newsworthy incident, but often it does not.

On the 15th, a female officer in Hawaii was shot and killed by a perp. Every news article I have found has been local and independent outlets. Officer Suzanne O.

Five days earlier on the 10th, a Baton Rouge motorcycle unit was escorting a funeral procession when someone intentionally ran him over. He was dragged for several feet under the suspect's car, felt like killing him just because he was a cop. He even bragged about it on social media. Same story, local reporting based on the first several pages of Google news search. Sgt. Caleb Eisworth.

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PuzzleheadedPea6980@reddit

This is considered national news

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/police-officers-shot-utah-man-taken-into-custody/

The state made a big deal about the funeral. They.shut down 70 miles of freeway. I saw the procession come into town and happened to be at a restaurant nearby the funeral. Officers from all over the region came out.

The problem with national news in America is that there is a major event happening every day, and so headlines get buried by headlines.

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RevolutionaryRow1208@reddit

It would be unusual for a police officer dying in the line of duty to be national news...there would have to be other extenuating circumstances to make it national. It's usually big news in the local community because it doesn't happen that often.

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not often enough

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Geniusinternetguy@reddit

These numbers are published by the FBI.

It’s generally 100-150/year. That includes vehicular deaths which are the majority.

This is for over 700,000 police with millions of encounters per year.

The number of pets cops murder per year is in the thousands.

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MeepleMerson@reddit

In 2024, the US lost 148 police officers in the line of duty. Most of those deaths were due to accidents (traffic accident, hit by car while responding to an accident, hit by car while directing traffic, etc.). Police find themselves working in or around traffic quite often, and traffic can be dangerous.

Officer deaths will always make local news. It would make national news if the circumstance was particularly grievous or showed special bravery on part of the officer.

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megafly@reddit

Most of them die in car wrecks because they drive recklessly.

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Chance-Business@reddit

Even in a place like NYC where everyone thinks it's dangerous, if a police officer dies in the line of duty it's a big deal and it actually doesn't happen often at all. Then it gets blasted on the news for days, if not weeks. If you ask the rest of the world or even paranoid americans about nypd deaths they probably think police die all the time.

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free-toe-pie@reddit

People act like it happens all the time but it doesn’t. It’s actually pretty uncommon. But people die at the hands of cops all the time.

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WhydIJoinRedditAgain@reddit

In terms of most dangerous jobs, it is 22 on this list from the University of Delaware: https://www.facilities.udel.edu/safety/4689/

mstakenusername@reddit (OP)

Tell me more about parliament question time. That sounds fun.

I imagine it's a bit like when Congress is in session, although apparently it is more rowdy.

The definition I found online: Parliamentary Question Time is a set period, usually on each sitting day, where Members of Parliament (MPs) ask questions to government ministers without prior notice to scrutinise government policy and activities.

Basically, it's a chance for them to take political shots at each other.

If you're interested, this is a recent compilation of highlights: https://youtu.be/2oeYVG42Yts?si=TfNymkrRRcY-FYMN

And this is a video of former Prime Minister Paul Keating, from Question Times in the early 90s, because he was nothing if not entertaining: https://youtu.be/0JcNlese0ig?si=TQ661QEU5cm_dMp2

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AdInevitable2695@reddit

A state trooper died here earlier in the year assisting a breakdown on the highway and it was all that was on the news for like a month.

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WhatABeautifulMess@reddit

Officer Down Memorial Page has statistics for how often. https://www.odmp.org/

Individual cases tend to be local or regional news but not national news unless the situation is unique or noteworthy to be national news. The Police Community recognizes through National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund which has a memorial, museum, and puts on Police Week in DC every year. https://nleomf.org/

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EdithWhartonsFarts@reddit

I can only provide anecdotal evidence, but I've worked in law enforcement for about 18 years and have had no one die in my department in the line of duty and only two in my county in the line of duty during that time. So, I guess the answer is that it doesn't happen often. It depends on what you mean by whether or not it's treated as a big deal. It certainly is a big deal in my world, but I don't know how much the average citizen knows about it even going on.

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It generally would not be the leading story on national news but would usually be the leading story on local news.

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ZLUCremisi@reddit

It has to get up to massive shooting, a man hunt, or terrorist attack for it to get national.

Majority of the time it will be local. Most people will only notice because the black band on the police badges that an officer died.

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LunarTexan@reddit

Yeah, for it to reach national news it usually needs something extra to it; be that brutality, a perceived ideological or terrorist element to it, the government going into full "We're gonna search half the state" over it, etc

According to FBI statistics, there were 60 ‘felonius deaths’ of police officers in the USA in 2023.

That’s down from 71 in 2021. The majority were gun deaths.

Thankfully in Australia, it is a rarity.

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PsychologicalBat1425@reddit

Not very often, although it does happen. Locally it is a very big deal.

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CalebCaster2@reddit

police die on the job less than pizza delivery drivers die on the job. But when it happens, the news really runs with it

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CODMAN627@reddit

It’s actually not all that often where I’m from and if it does happen it’s a big deal regionally or even state wide depending.

nasa258e@reddit

Electrician is statistically more deadly job than cop, even in America

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bombayblue@reddit

It’s huge news when it happens. But it doesn’t happen that often.

The deadliest thing to ever happen to cops was….covid 19. About half the police officer deaths were due to Covid or another illness. The next deadliest thing is traffic accidents.

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https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-officers-killed-and-assaulted-in-the-line-of-duty-2023-special-report-and-law-enforcement-employee-counts

https://cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/Blue-alert/2023_Blue_Alert_Officers_Shot_Year_End_Report.pdf

The study of the data reveals, from 2021 to 2023, more officers were feloniously killed (194) than in any other consecutive three-year period in the past 20 years (73 officers in 2021, 61 officers in 2022, and 60 officers in 2023)

So, it’s a little more than one a week killed during the years above. And about one per day is shot. Feloniously implies it was a deliberate act of murder than, say, a car accident.

They typically do make national news but it’s a 1 minute segment typically and not breaking news.

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ATLien_3000@reddit

National news absent the event itself being otherwise newsworthy? Unlikely.

But significant coverage locally.

And members of Congress will frequently pay tribute to folks from home (including after a death) during morning orders.

Of course, in Congress no one's on the floor for those speeches.

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TrashPandaNotACat@reddit

A number of years ago, when you could listen in on phones and police radio with scanners, I was listening to two cops talking a little before a search was to be done on someone. One asked, what if we don't find anything and the other replied to "find it" the old fashioned way (in other words, plant it). So yeah, cops lie.

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T_Rey1799@reddit

Eh, I see maybe one a year on the local or state news, not usually national news

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Bright_Ices@reddit

We had three years in which Covid killed more cops in the line of duty than any other cause: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/03/covid-police-top-line-of-duty-death-usa-2022

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Important-Trifle-411@reddit

Definitely not that often, and it’s a big deal when it happens.

But if you listen to cops in America, they go on and on as if it’s one of the most dangerous jobs out there. The last time I checked, it did not even make the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the United States

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Bawstahn123@reddit

>How often do police die in the line of duty

Not often. Contrary to how they beat their chests over it, being a police officer in the US isn't a very dangerous job, and isn't even even on the top-ten list of most dangerous careers.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/civilian-occupations-with-high-fatal-work-injury-rates.htm

>and how big a deal is made of it?

Its made into a big deal, because police have undue influence over media and culture.

Cops kill more people in a year than cops get killed.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

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SabresBills69@reddit

Every week there are some. It doesn't na Make national news unless it was multiple deaths or something significant associated to it like a mass shooting event.

Right now multiple shooting doesn't make much news beyond a local area unless it involves children or a big school shooting.

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bemused_alligators@reddit

the cops love to shout from the rooftops about how dangerous their job is and use that image as an excuse for militarization, but in actuality being a policeman is one of the safer jobs in the states.

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A 26-year old police officer just died in the line of duty in my city. (He looks so young!) I’ve only seen it in local news. I noticed the school flag at half mast, though. I assume it was for the officer.

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dracarys289@reddit

Just another day. It’ll make local and maybe regional news but that’s all.

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Crazy_Response_9009@reddit

The ten most dangerous jobs in teh US. Police is not on it.
https://www.oshaeducationcenter.com/dangerous-jobs-in-united-states/

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Kellosian@reddit

Probably more often than in Australia (we have way more guns), but also not nearly as often as cops would have you believe. Cops get a lot of leeway because of how innately dangerous the job is, when it doesn't crack the top 10 in terms of actual danger. OSHA has a list of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the US, and the most common is probably either roofer (#2), delivery/truck driver (#6), and garbage collector (#7). Roofers just fall off buildings a lot and the other two are just people who drive a lot for a living. This USAToday article doesn't have cops in the top 25

It gets a lot of emotional weight and your average beat cop writing traffic tickets is basically treated like he died in on the beaches of Normandy, but overall it's just not major news. The only reason two cops dying would ever be mentioned in Congress is if they were shot by an illegal immigrant and they were being used as political props

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Ok-Business5033@reddit

On a country level? Often enough you see it, but not daily.

It is often a pretty large deal, often times you'll have the president briefed on situations but it really just depends.

The thing with police work is there are so many ways to die- getting ambushed by a cartel member or getting shot while responding to an active shooter is often going to gather more attention than an officer killed on a random traffic stop or via car crash.

There were 167 LODD by police officers last year

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Straight-Jury-7852@reddit

According to the cops, everyday is like a foot patrol through the Stalingrad tractor factory.

🙄

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MyUsername2459@reddit

It's actually pretty rare.

It's rare enough that when it happens, it's remembered.

Our local Sheriff's office had a deputy killed in the line of duty a few years ago (he stopped someone along the Interstate, they were smuggling drugs and were afraid of being caught so they opened fire). You still see people in town wearing shirts and displaying bumper stickers from the fundraiser they did for his family. It was the first time we'd lost someone in the line of duty.

Here's the memorial webpage for every Trooper lost in the line of duty for the Kentucky State Police: https://www.kentuckystatepolice.ky.gov/fallenmemorial

The KSP has around a thousand sworn personnel at any given time, and has been around for 77 years, and lost 31 Troopers in that time. That's less than once every two years, for what is seen as a pretty dangerous police service who often operate alone, in rural and remote areas.

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kmoonster@reddit

Death in the line of duty is pretty uncommon, but injury and high risk situations are fairly common.

Police do have a relatively high rate of suicide, though.

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n00bca1e99@reddit

I live in a city of \~300K people. 7 officers have died on duty.

1917, car crash
1932, shot
1949, motorcycle crash
1966, shot
1967, shot
1968, motorcycle crash
2020, shot

In the county I live in, 4 sheriffs have died on duty.

1959, heart attack
1973, heart attack
1987, shot
2020, heart attack

Honestly, I'm surprised there's been no deaths of county sheriffs from car crashes, since I mainly see them doing traffic enforcement. The city officer was breaking news across the state for about two weeks, and the county sheriff was mentioned on the news that night. I remember when the officer was shot he was airlifted to another city, and the procession bringing his body back took about ten minutes to pass. I'm not sure if the shooting made national news, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

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Carlpanzram1916@reddit

A police officer is about as likely to be murdered in the line of duty as they are to die in a car accident. Granted, a police officer is more likely than most people to die in a car accident because they are driving so much, but overall it’s still a somewhat low probability. Certainly way more dangerous than the average job but also not nearly the most dangerous job

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EvacuateEels@reddit

First question: once

Second question: a disproportionate amount

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Matt7738@reddit

If you’re a police officer and your wife gets pregnant, she’s twice as likely to die in the next year as you are.

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SnooChipmunks2079@reddit

It depends how much else is going on and the circumstances of the death. It wouldn’t usually be mentioned in Congress unless someone thinks they can have a political win. There are too many.

https://nleomf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Deaths-by-Year_2025_final.pdf

If I remember right, about half of annual police deaths are traffic related, either as a driver or pedestrian.

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docfarnsworth@reddit

167 died while on duty in 2024. But, this includes things like heart attacks. So its quite a rare event and gets a lot of press coverage. Here, when an officer is killed in the line of duty from something like a gun shot, they have a beg convoy of police vehicles and drive through the city.

Some interesting death cause of death numbers:

9/11 related illness 25

assault 5

car crash20

gunfire 49

accidental gunfire 3

heart attack 17

stabbed 2

vehicular assault 12

https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2024

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yidsinamerica@reddit

Not very often AFAIK. It makes local and sometimes regional news at the least, but there are some outliers.

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TheLizardKing89@reddit

Last year 167 police officers died “in the line of duty.” 49 were shot and 42 were killed in some sort of vehicle related cause.

https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2024

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Such-Mountain-6316@reddit

There was a TV show called Adam 12. They made an episode called Requiem for a Pig. That's pretty accurate when it comes to a high profile officer's death. It's possible you might find it online.

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machuitzil@reddit

Pizza delivery drivers die at higher rates than police. Loggers, fisherman, roofers, I don't think cops even break the top ten most dangerous jobs in this country.

That being said, most cops who do die, die in traffic related accidents, working car crashes on the highway or things of that nature. And yes they do die to violence as well, but considering that more school children are shot in this country each year than police, and that police shoot anywhere from 7k-10k dogs each year.., sorry but I don't have a lot of sympathy leftover for police.

They don't protect, they don't serve, they just abuse their overtime allotment.

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5usDomesticus@reddit

There are on average between about 150-200 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in the US, annually.

It will always make local and regional news, and often make national news, albeit briefly

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kenmohler@reddit

My grandfather was killed in the line of duty in a bank robbery. But it was in 1923, so I have no idea about news coverage.

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kirksan@reddit

In 2023 there were 136 officers killed in the line of duty in the US, 47 of them were killed by gunfire. So a little more than 2 a week, and 1 a week by gunfire. The others were traffic related and other means, such as getting stabbed, falls, and so on. Some of these would be suicide, or just a regular accident, but I think it’s fair to assume that most were violent deaths involving a bad guy.

This is too many in general, and too many to receive much national attention. Even local coverage can be somewhat low key, particularly in large cities; smaller communities would see much more local coverage. There would have to be significant unusual circumstances to see the type of response OP saw in Australia.

Others have mentioned that cops kill more often than they’re killed. That’s true. In 2023 there 1,329 people killed by police, so a little less than 4 a day. Most of those deaths receive little or no national or local coverage.

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IJustWantADragon21@reddit

It’s usually big locally. It happens a few times a year. Depending on the circumstances, different amounts of attention are paid to it. If an officer gets hit by a car during a traffic stop it’ll be local/state news. If they die trying to thwart a mass shooter or a terrorist, then it’s going to be a big deal because they’ll be deemed a hero, and it would probably get some national press.

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Sufficient_Cod1948@reddit

Not very often, but when it does they make a very, very big deal of it.

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Tron_35@reddit

It wouldn't be national news unless the died in some big event that made the news.

As awful as it is, America is a big country, every officers death just won't make national coverage.

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Heavy_Gap_5047@reddit

Not nearly as often as they want us to believe. The vast majority of blue collar jobs primarily done by men are far more dangerous. It's just these men are risking their lives for their families and the good of society. Not the whims of politicians so they don't get honored when they die.

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hatred-shapped@reddit

Far more than should have. New York has the highest number of deaths.

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05041927@reddit

Deaths by police are grossly outweighed comparatively and as a profession it is like 14th on the list or something.

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DannyBones00@reddit

In 2024 it was something like 147, but only 64 were killed from like violent acts. 40something were from accidents.

I can tell you this: if an officer in my small area in Appalachia is killed, it makes local news for a few days. We don’t hear about officers dying anywhere else in the country unless for some reason something about it was special and it makes national news.

The last one I can remember is when that mass shooter in Texas ambushed the police and killed several.

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tdacct@reddit

Very rarely. Law enforcement doesnt even make the top 50 of most dangerous jobs.

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ReturnByDeath-@reddit

Not as often people are killed by them, but it happens. It'll make local news for sure, but hardly a national story unless there's some unique circumstances.