Washington (AFP) – The number of US law enforcement officers criminally killed in 2015 dropped nearly 20 percent last year, the FBI said Monday.
The figure fell to 41 officers from 51 officers the previous year.
Police officers died in a range of incidents, including ambushes, robberies, domestic disturbance calls and traffic stops, according to preliminary statistics the FBI released in a statement.
More killings took place in the South than any other region, the FBI said.
Offenders used guns in 38 of the 41 deaths, most of them handguns. Three used vehicles as weapons.
In addition to the 41 officers criminally killed, another 45 police officers died during line-of-duty accidents in 2015, the same number as in 2014, the FBI said.
Most died in car or motorcycle accidents, while another two died in accidental shootings.
The downward trend contrasts with the country’s general homicide rate, which rose in 2015 and the first months of 2016 in more than two dozen major cities, FBI statistics showed last week.
FBI Director James Comey has suggested that greater public scrutiny of police may be changing how they operate, pushing up the homicide rate by making them less willing to confront possible suspects.
The controversial suggestion concerns what has been dubbed the “Ferguson effect,” after the Missouri city where protests erupted when a white police officer fatally shot an 18-year-old African-American in 2014.
It was one of a series of killings of African-Americans by white police officers — most caught on video — that have roiled racial tensions and prompted a protest movement under the banner “Black Lives Matter.”
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