Indiana Police Officer Memorial
Law Enforcement Statistics and Facts

The below information is from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

1) There are approximately 740,000 sworn law enforcement officers now serving in the United States. About 10 percent of them are female.

2) Each year there are approximately 33 million crimes committed in the United States, an average of one crime every two seconds.

3) Crime fighting has taken its toll. Since the first recorded police death in 1794, there have been more than 14,000 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

4) A total of 1,533 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the last 10 years, an average of one death every 58 hours or 153 per year. There were 130 police deaths in 1999.

5) On average, more than 65,000 law enforcement officers are assaulted each year and some 23,000 are injured annually.

6) The deadliest year in law enforcement history was 1974 when 268 officers were killed. The deadliest decade was the 1970's when a total of 2,182 officers died, or 218 each year. That figure has dropped dramatically in the 1990's to 152 per year.

7) The deadliest day in law enforcement history was September 11, 2001, when 72 officers were killed while responding to the terrorist attacks on America. The second deadliest day in law enforcement history was November 24, 1917, when nine Milwaukee (WI) police officers were killed in a bomb blast at headquarters, and a 10th officer from the Columbus (OH) Police Department was shot and killed.

8) New York City has lost more officers in the line of duty than any other department, with 526 deaths. California has lost 1,176 officers, more than any other state. The state with the fewest deaths is Vermont, with 15.

Officers Killed by Department (1900 – 1999)
Departments with the most officer deaths.

1. New York City, New York, P.D.---- 526
2. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, P.D.---- 229
3. Detroit, Michigan, P.D.---- 207
4. Highway Patrol, California---- 191
5. Los Angeles, California, P.D.---- 190)
6. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, U.S.---- 182
7. St. Louis, Missouri, P.D.---- 136
8. Kansas City, Missouri, P.D.---- 112
9. Metropolitan, Washington D.C., P.D.---- 104
10. State Police, New York---- 102

Officers Killed by State (1900 – 1999)
States with the most officer deaths.

1. California---- 1,176
2. New York---- 1,025
3. Texas---- 803
4. Illinois---- 797
5. Pennsylvania---- 593
6. Ohio---- 587
7. Florida---- 528
8. Missouri---- 485
9. Michigan---- 452
10. Georgia---- 393

9) The average age of the officers killed during the past century was 38 and the average length of service was about eight years. Pulaski County (MO) Night Marshal Dotson “Pop” Sutton, 80, was the oldest officer to die in the line of duty. He was struck by a vehicle while on patrol in 1952. The youngest officers, seven of them, were all 19 years old when they died. In 1919, Thomas Knevet, a Hartford (CT) police officer, was also struck by a vehicle and killed. He had worked in law enforcement for 44 years, making him the longest serving officer ever to die in the line of duty.

10) There has been 102 female officers killed since 1900, only seven of whom were killed prior to 1970.

11) More officers have been killed in January (1,318) and December (1,309) than during any other months of the year.

12) During the last 10 years, more officers were killed on Fridays than any other day of the week. The fewest number of fatalities occurred on Sundays.

13) More officers were killed between 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. than during any other two-hour period over the past decade.

14) Roughly 61% of the officers killed this past century were feloniously assaulted by criminals, and 39% died in accidental circumstances (e.g., automobile accidents, aircraft accidents, shooting accidents, etc.). However, during each of the past five years (including 1999) that trend has reversed itself with more accidental deaths than felonious, as shown in appendix B. Roughly 5% of the officers who died over the past 100 years were killed taking law enforcement action while in an off duty capacity.

1. Firearms (6,846 or 49%)
2. Automobile Accidents (2,090 or 15%)
3. Motorcycle Accidents (1,022 or 7%)
4. Struck by Vehicle (955 or 7%)
5. Job-related Illness (588 or 4%)
6. Aircraft Accidents (311 or 2%)
7. Stabbings (197 or 1%)
8. Fall (147 or 1%)
9. Drowning (142 or 1%)
10. Beaten (134 or 1%)

15) Automobile accidents were the second-leading cause of police fatalities by the end of the century, resulting in more than 2,000 deaths (15% of all deaths). Nearly 1,000 more officers (7% of all deaths) were struck and killed by passing motorists while outside of their own vehicles, making this category the fourth-leading cause of law enforcement deaths during the past 100 years. About 315 of these vehicle-related deaths were caused by drunk drivers.

16) During the early part of the past century, the second leading cause of police deaths were motorcycle accidents. In fact, from 1910 through 1939, there was a total of 485 officers killed in motorcycle accidents, compared to 323 officers who died in automobile accidents. As law enforcement began to increasingly rely more and more on the automobile, motorcycle deaths declined during the latter half of the century, but still accounted for more than 1,000 officer fatalities during the century (7% of all deaths). Motorcycle accidents ended the century as the third-leading cause of police deaths.

17) During the past century more officers, by far, were killed by firearms than by any other single cause. Nearly 7,000 officers were shot to death, accounting for about 49 percent of all law enforcement fatalities over the past 100 years. The deadliest shootout during that period occurred on January 2, 1932, in Springfield (MO). A suspected cop killer was rumored to be hiding at a house just outside of town. Greene County (MO) Sheriff Marcell C. Hendrix took nine officers with him to make the arrest. The officers were met with a hail of gunfire and six officers, including Sheriff Hendrix, were killed.

18) Largely due to the increased use of soft body armor, better training and improved equipment, police deaths have been on the decline for the past two decades. During the 1980’s we averaged 187 officer fatalities each year, and in the 1990’s we averaged 153. At the same time that deaths were declining, the number of law enforcement officers in our nation grew substantially from roughly 315,000 officers in 1970 to an estimated 740,000 serving today.
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