How Dangerous is Being a Cop in the US?

I saw a posting on Facebook (which I can no longer find, because Facebook posts are ephemeral and the algorithm used to put things on your timeline is apparently unstable) talking about the cost/person of police departments in major cities throughout the US.  In the comments was the question "how much do you pay someone to risk getting shot every day?" with the implication that your average police officer in the US faces a substantial risk of death by gunfire daily, and therefore whatever the costs were, they were a good value.

And that got me thinking.  Always a dangerous place for me to go.

How dangerous is it to be a police officer in the US?  Is there significant risk of dying by gunfire?  How does it compare with other occupations?

So let's go.


How many police officers are there in the US?  How is that number changing annually?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 780,000 "Police and Detectives" in the US in 2012.  That's our baseline.  That number, BTW, is expected to grow by 5% by 2022, totaling about 821,000 by then.  I'd love more data about this, but it's all I could find in a quick search, so we'll consider 780K as our baseline number of police in the US.


How many police officers died in the line of duty in 2012?  Was that number "typical" for the years around it?
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 122 officers died in the line of duty in 2012.  That number is low compared to 2010 (161) and 2011 (171), but high compared to 2013 (100), so let's dig a little deeper with a graph:

Police Deaths by Year 1990-2013

Data from National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund

Graph by Evan Robinson

Frankly, I think I see a slight downward trend in the data, but the math says otherwise.  There's virtually no correlation between passage of time and number of police deaths.  I note that 2001 (241) is quite an outlier.  You have to go back to 1981 to get another year where more than 200 police died, but in the 70s, only 1977 (192) had fewer than 200 police deaths.  The 70s were far worse than the 60s, which were worse than the 50s.


What's the chance of death in the line of duty for a police officer in the US?  What's the chance of death by gunfire?
If there are 780,000 police officers in the US and 159.4 die annually (the mean from 1990 and 2013 inclusive), the chance of dying is 159.4 in 780,000 or 1 in 4892.8 or .0002.  That's about 2 hundredths of a percent.  Specifically taking 2012 numbers, it's 122 in 780,000 or 1 in 6393 or .00016, or about 16 thousandths of a percent.  But let's take the higher number of 1 in about 4890, again .0002.  Expressed as a death rate per 100,000, that is 20.4 -- that is, 20.4 of every 100,000 police officers in the US die annually from line-of-duty causes.

The overall annual death rate in the US for 2010 (the most recent final value I can find according to the Department of Health and Human Services, at the CDC website) was 747.0, with a preliminary value of 740.6 for 2011.  So police line-of-duty death rates are about 3% of total mean death rates.

Police line-of-duty deaths, while tragic, are not a significant risk compared to mean death rates in the US.

But wait, we want to talk about gun-related police deaths, right?  Again according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, in 2012 50/122 officers killed died from gunfire.  Over the past decade, the mean percentage of officer deaths from gunfire was 36%.  So the gun-related death rate is 20.4*.36 = 7.4 per 100,000.


How do these death rates compare with other ages, causes, and professions?
In 2008 (the most recent year for which data in a complete Statistical Abstract of the United States is available), the only age range to have a death rate anywhere near that low is 5-14, where the male death rate was 24 and the female death rate was 12.  Police officer line-of-duty deaths are therefore less common (statistically) than any death of 5-14 year old boys, although more common than 5-14 year old girls.  Line-of-duty gun deaths are about one-third as common as all deaths of 5-14 year old boys and about half as common as all deaths of 5-14 year old girls.  In 2008, the mean death rate for males 25-35 (in which age range I imagine many police officers fall) was 225.  For males 35-44 it was 348.  So depending upon their age range, police officers are between 10x and 17x more likely to die from non-work-related causes than line-of-duty causes.  And 30x to 47x more likely to die from non-work-related causes than line-of-duty gunfire.

In 2006, comparable causes of death to all line-of-duty deaths include: Heart Failure (excluding ischemic heart disease aka "a heart attack") at 20.2; NonTransport Accidents (including falls, drowning, smoke inhalation, fire/flames, and poisoning) at 24.4; Diabetes at 24.2; Alzheimer's disease at 24.2; Drug and Alcohol induced deaths (combined) at 20.2.

Also in 2006, comparable causes of death to gun-related line-of-duty deaths include: prostate cancer at 9.5; Leukemia at 7.3; Falls at 7.0; Alcohol induced deaths at 7.4.

According to preliminary data for 2013 (see page 14), the rate of "fatal occupational injuries" in Construction is 9.4 per 100,000; Transportation and Warehousing is 13.1; Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting is 22.2; Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction is 12.3.

In other words, it's as dangerous to be a police officer as it is to be a farmer (3 million people), forester or logger (1.7 million people), commercial fisherman (1 million people) or hunter (about 14,000 people).  So there are over 5.7 million jobs in the US more dangerous than being a police officer.  And another 6 million in construction, which has a higher death rate than police gun-related deaths.


What's it all mean?
So yeah, being a police officer is a dangerous job, but the job-related danger is much less than your basic life-related danger (health problems, general accidents, etc.).  And there are about 7 times more people doing Ag-related jobs which are more dangerous than being a police officer.

So what do we have to pay these people to risk being shot every day?  I'd say a mean of about $57K per year, which is what they get.  Maybe we need to raise the pay of the people in Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, who get mean annual wages in the $18K - $41K range for more dangerous jobs.


TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)
I realize that putting the TL;DR way down here kind of defeats the purpose, but it allows me to put the conclusion after the work, which I like.

Being a police officer is a dangerous occupation.  But there are plenty of people in the US who do more dangerous jobs for far less pay.  Police line of duty death rates are comparable to death rates from Diabetes and Alzheimer's disease or the combination of drug and alcohol induced deaths.  Police line of duty shooting death rates are comparable to alcohol induced deaths, Leukemia, or death by falling.  A male police officer between 25 and 44 is many times (10x - 17x) more likely to die from a non-work-related cause than to die in the line of duty.  And only about one-third of those line-of-duty deaths are gun-related.

And here's something else to think about
On average a police officer dies in the line of duty in the US about every 55 hours (everything you need for this calculation is above so I'm not going to insult your intelligence by including it).  On average a police officer kills a civilian (about 400 annually) about every 22 hours.  So I think we have more to worry about from them than they do from us.

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Woman On The Run 32 years, Caught.

Wow, what a story. This dumb girl, 19 years old, is selling smack in Michigan in 1974. She gets busted selling 600 bucks of horse to a narc in Saginaw. Her parents convinced her to plead guilty to save them embarrassment(!). What a couple of winners those two must have been. The gavel comes down and it's 10 to 20 years in the slammer upstate, hard time. This is the first time she was in trouble, she thought she would get probation. What a shocker that must have been. She does a year and then I suppose out of compassion, her grandfather, who must have been much less of an asshole than dad was, helps her escape. Not that she tunneled out with a spoon. She hopped a fence and grampa drove her away.

Now, some "friend" of hers who she must have told about it squeals anonymously and 32 years later the fuzz turn up in her driveway. Except now she is 53 and a mother of 3 kids. A fine upstanding citizen. Who knew there was even any time in the statute of limitations on a minor drug bust like this?

Sounds like they want to lock her up out of spite to me. Listen to the cops in Michigan.

"I've heard her story that she just happened to be with a person who was selling heroin," said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. "The file we have is very different."

"She had people working for her. She was making a large profit," Marlan said. "She wore nice clothing and rented an apartment. When she was arrested, she had $600 in cash, paraphernalia for cutting heroin, and photographs that proved she was acquainted with people higher up in the Saginaw drug world. --MLive.com

Saginaw drug world? Give me a break and she had nice clothing? Oh yeah that's a drug king pin for you, clothes and an apartment. Practically Scarface there, and 600 simolians in cold hard cash... Man, thats the high life.

This case is ridiculous. She shouldn't have served time in the first place. A 19 year old on the first offense. All the stories I am reading are that she took cash from a narc. Did she deliver? Or, when she wouldn't go down on the cop, he busted her?

32 years later and this case is still bullshit. Give her time served and everyone moves on with their life. This Russ Marlan, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections sounds like a real wanker.

Her file said she was on work release because she was not a management problem, and that day she was heading to a work assignment at a clinic -- I believe it was somewhere on the prison grounds. She had a pass at 6:30 a.m. and by 7:30 a.m. the people at the clinic called to say she had not reported for work.

So the Scareface of Saginaw gets work release? What waste of taxpayers money. Don't they have bigger problems in Michigan?

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Teenager Tased to Death

According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, officers were called in to the Prosperity Church Road supermarket to deal with an altercation inside.

According to a statement from CMPD, the employee, Darryl Wayne Turner, was “assaulting the store manager by throwing an object at him” and “refused all verbal commands and advanced toward the officer.”

Authorities say Turner was then handcuffed and zapped with a Taser. When it was realized he needed medical attention, police called in an ambulance. Turner was transferred to Carolinas Medical Center–University, where police say he died some time Thursday afternoon. -- news14.com

They tasered the grocery clerk? This shit is ridiculous. They handcuffed him and then they tased him?!?!? Clearly the police can not handle this weapon. I don't think I have seen a worse situation of misuse of a weapon. Giving tasers to cops is like giving a handgun to a child. They simply can't handle the responsibility. This weapon is supposed to be a alternative to deadly force. It is not a behavior modification tool. Congress needs to do something about this. They have to be banned.

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Healthy 29 yo Tasered to death after Accident

Authorities are investigating the death of a 29-year-old Fridley man shot with a Taser by state troopers, who said he had become "uncooperative'' after a rush-hour crash Tuesday evening.

The victim was identified by his father as Mark C. Backlund. Gordon Backlund said his son was on his way to pick up his parents at the airport after they had taken a short trip to Florida.

-- StarTribune.com

So this guy is in a traffic accident, and the jack booted thug on the scene tase's him because he is uncooperative. OBEY!

When are we going to ban these things? Congress? hello?

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Polish Man Tasered to Death by Airport Police

Don't get that Canadian visa just yet. Vancouver Airport Police are the latest in a proud group of jackbooted pussies who can't seem to handle interactions with people unless they submit to complete obedience instantly.

"Recently police at the Vancouver airport were attempting to question a recent immigrant that could not speak English. They tasered him after 24 seconds of speaking with him. The man had spent 10 hours stuck in the airport with no-one helping him." via Boing Boing

These steroid raged fueled sub-dominants need to be stopped. This shit is out of control. They broke the leg of a Minister who was trying to enter the Petreaus hearings on Capital hill recently. But that's just one of thousands of this sort of thing happening all over. We need to remove the paramilitary culture from our police forces. Why do they all dress like SWAT members now?

How come we never see cops dressed like cops anymore. Everybody is just about to do a home invasion or break up a WTO riot. You never see a patrol officer anymore. It's all these needle-dicked weight lifting thugs who didn't even have the qualifications or the balls to join the Guard or regular Army. With this Supreme Court we dont also need a testostorone fueled police force.

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Free To Be...An A-S-S-H-O-L-E

“IDEA FIGHT!”

I spent much of yesterday at the doctor's office, getting a softball-incurred knee injury looked at (Grade 1/borderline 2 MCL sprain), just off Gramercy Park here in NYC. The weather...was glorious, albeit with a sky in that perfect shade of sapphire blue, and eerily cloudless like 9-11's was. But nonetheless, it was simply a remarkable day out—that time of the year...when the sun's angle is just so—blinding and direct at the peak of the day...brightening all its rays touch, and making everybody look that much younger...and more vital.

Everyone who passed my gimpy ass on the street seemed to look young, and fresh, and full of promise.

In fact, they all were young, and fresh, and full of promise. It took a minute to realize (Tylenol with Codeine will do that) that I was standing in the midst of a multitude of young adults making their way to and from Baruch College about a block away.

I used to hang out at Baruch on Thursday afternoons and evenings in my collegiate years for the parties. Off-the-chain jams. Step shows, Black fraternity throw-downs in the “Oak Room”, All-out debauchery-oozing mega-jams in the main lobby—oh my God! We had a ball! Not just at Baruch, but at F.I.T. a few blocks west, in the “D” building on Friday nights, and then Uptown for the jams at Columbia's parties at “Earl” Hall (a noise often heard in the restrooms there after too much drink) and “The Plex” downstairs pub. My school was a horrific party school, with Deejays “spinning” cassette tapes by Bic lighter-light, and no mixer! So we—my gang of friends and me—hit all the schools—up and down the eastern seaboard. Howard. Boston College. Rutgers. Harvard. Fredonia. You name the school, we hung there awhile—soaking up the college ambience that much more, as we went for quantity partying just as hard as we did for “quality”.

College was on my mind big-time yesterday as I watched the kids—and yes, more than a few of the pretty young girls— hustle on by. I thought of my son, who'll be going off to school next year (which kinda chilled my libidinous co-ed thoughts). And then, I saw a clutch of students moving in an angry wave with signs under their arms. The one in the lead was checking his cell phone and barking “Come on! Come on!” to those behind him—and I realized who they were. They were members of the school's Hillel Jewish organization—in my fog, I'd initially missed their yarmulkes and didn't immediately register the words on their picket signs. They were apparently headed uptown to protest the presence of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Columbia—and moreso in the city proper.

They were movin'.

And you had to get out of their way quick, because they were in a hurry. There was one huge kid, in a dark blue and white striped polo shirt—and stood about six-foot-four, 250 lbs easy. A man-mountain at the edge of the wedge, holding two big signs under a redwood-like arm, and he was not playin'. He was clearing the way with his shoulder. Boomp! Boomp! Boomp!

“What the hell is your problem? Asshole!”, one woman he almost knocked off the curb yelled.

“You see us comin'.”, the burly kid said. “You need to move!”

Boomp! Boomp! Boomp!

I tottered my lamed-up ass out of the way, but barely, as the kid nearly clipped me with one of the big signs he was toting.

The woman he plowed into was still seething as the group swept along.

“Fucking asshole!”, she yelled one more time as she moved across the street.

I laughed to myself because I remember specifically that I never heard that word—“Asshole” used to describe people more than I did in my college years.

The institution was apparently, full of 'em.

Which got me to thinking about college, and collegiate activism, and the whole “dude got tasered at the Kerry speech” thing at the University of Florida that had so many people in an uproar last week. I actually was going to comment on it shortly after it happened, but then...the story deepened as more and more facts came out about it.

It turned out the kid, 21-year old Andrew Meyer was something of an inveterate gadfly. And a proud, nearly professional heckler. He proudly says so in his own words here in an article entitled “I Pissed Off Ken Griffey Jr.”:

I pissed off Ken Griffey, Jr.  Before I explain how, let me repeat that for a second: I pissed off Ken Griffey, Jr.  So here’s what happened:

I went to see the Marlins play the Cincinnati Reds on May 31, 2004, and sat eight rows behind home plate.  My real seat was way up in the upper deck, so I was practically forced to sneak into a better section. Anyway, in the top of the seventh, Sean Casey came up to bat with a man on first and one out.  Before I delve into my tale, let me give some background info.

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Now, you have to know this about me: I am huge Marlins fan, and a born heckler. My purpose in life is to badger, jeer, and cajole professional athletes. I have angered two other All-Star baseball players, Bobby Abreu and Odalis Perez, on separate occasions. I have booed singers that mess up the national anthem. Heck, I’ll even heckle other hecklers if I don’t care for their stuff. What happened during this particular game was destined to be, the paths of Griffey and I on a collision course.

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“WALK CASEY TO GET TO GRIFFEY!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “WALK CASEY TO GET TO GRIFFEY!”

I now not only had the attention of my entire section, but Griffey himself turned an eye in my direction, and began to stare. I was on my feet, and he spotted me immediately. I was nowhere near done with this.

“WE WANT GRIFFEY!” I screamed, deliriously. “WE WANT GRIFFEY!” There was no question about it now. Griffey was staring me down, angry.  Instantly I realized what I had done. I had twisted the lion’s tail, awakened a sleeping giant, rousted the dragon from his lair.

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Ball one. I began to squirm in my seat. Ball two. When the umpire called that second ball, I knew down in my gut everything that would happen next.  Casey walked on four pitches. Griffey walked to the plate, still glaring in my direction. The pitcher winds, delivers --- Strike one. 
“That’s right Griffey! You’re nothing!” I yell. Griffey knocks the next one out of the park. As he rounds third, he points right into the stands behind home plate, right at me.

Let us all join in with that angry, plowed-through lady crossing the Lexington Avenue. Say it with her, now: “Asshole!”

Then I come to find out that Kerry, in trying to defuse the situation with the kid over-running his question time, actually deferred to Meyer, thinking that just letting him have his say would eventually lessen the tension in the room and cool things out.

As Charlie Murphy said of Rick James learning his lesson, “Wrong! Wrong!”

And then I saw the entire video of the incident, where Meyer clearly was set on a path of being as annoying as possible, pissing off everybody around him, and then, pretty much dicking around with the police when it was clear that they too were out of control.

I ingested these facts, and filtering them through my own experiences at teach-ins, rallies, Q & As, and then, dealing with Five-O, I came to the following conclusions.

One: Part of the greatness of America is its freedoms. Of speech. To dissent. And...the freedom to be an asshole, which Meyer evidently exercises with the zeal of a scrawny kid in the basement mirror with a brand new “Bullworker”. He is undoubtedly an asshole, and has every God-given right to be one. Unfortunately, when you exercise that right, for it to be effective it has to impact someone else—people outside of just you. And a side effect of that impact is that it causes people, like that lady knocked into the gutter, to dislike you, and yes...often look the other way when someone decides to kick your annoying ass. Which is what happened to Andrew Meyer that day at Florida State. I've seen knuckleheads like him engender so much ill-will in an assembled crowd that the crowd itself has been moved to beat down the offender.

I remember being at a Q & A on Blacks in Journalism in the 80's at The Cooper Union art college. The panelists were Black talk radio host Bob Law, a female Black conservative apologist named Applewaite, (who Law kept intentionally malaproping as Applewhite) and a journalistic idol of mine, the great Jimmy Breslin. It was a pretty spirited affair, but it got crazy when one hard-case nut took over the mic. He asked one question. Then two. Then three. Before you know it, it was six or so questions, each one more breathlessly asked than the last, and twice as crazy each time. There was a line of people behind him waiting to speak and they and the crowd began to boo the boor, who would not. Let. Go. Of. The. Mic.

Breslin, sensing the tension, stood up and implored “Let him finish. Let him finish! Fella's got an opinion just like the rest a' you. Let him get it off his chest.” But dear Jimmy clearly didn't realize he was dealing with a professional, inveterate nutbar, who went on for a couple more minutes pontificating, and then invoked in one fell swoop while screaming, black helicopters, the meaning of the all-seeing eye on the dollar bill, and...the Illuminati. As the crowd now wrestled with the gadfly for the mic, Breslin stood up again, thrust his hands into his jacket pockets and said while sighing, “And now buddy...you are on your own”. With that a few people grabbed the mic stand, and a few grabbed ol' Gregor Kookypants, separated the two, and hustled the dude up the aisle, and outta there like the Klan-lovin' pol at the end of “O Brother, Where art Thou?”

Was it uncool to do? Yes, it was. Was he asking important questions? Some were. Some weren't. But he was certainly unmaking friends with every second-hogging, crazyfuck word. Was he being an asshole? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. And once people tab you as an asshole, you move yourself into dangerous territory in terms of getting the benefit of the doubt from people when the shit goes against you. It ain't fair...but it is human nature.

And speaking of human nature...

Two: Another part of America's—actually the world's— greatness, is the way we are not limited by station in terms of behavior. Anyone... can be an asshole. Including cops. And the cops who tazed Meyer were assholes. Maybe the worst kind—namely authoritarian assholes. Occupations that place people in hierarchal positions over the bulk of the populace tend to attract those types. And because of that, when you get an guy acting like Meyers in a place where you have authoritarian assholes nearby, well...it's a cocktail for taze-saster. Give John Kerry credit—he was the most sane person there, trying to de-fuse things by letting the kid expend his wind. But, like Breslin, he didn't realize he was dealing with a 200,000 BTU blower jacked into a high-tension line.

Asshole met assholes when the cops and Meyer collided—and in that battle, the assholes with tasers almost invariably trumps the “proud, nearly professional heckler“ asshole with a big mouth and bigger attitude. His idiotic, tweaking “Dont taze me bro'!” appeal to the cops was a stupid-ass move—especially in light of how anyone with common sense knows how Five-O plays when you fuck around with 'em like that. And his spastic physical resistance? Well...that's just making the authoritarian with a weapon's job that much easier, isn't it? Jesse and Sara make that point clear in these prescient posts from a month before “bro got tazed”. The initial dudgeon over this “injustice” on both sides of the aisle was tempered as soon as the facts began to get out, but that still leaves us with one undeniable fact to chew over.

The cops were waaaaaaaaaay, waaaaaaaaaaay out of line, and there wasn't a Goddamned thing John Kerry could do about it at the time, beyond what his job is—to be statesmanlike.

Oh yes, and that the “victim” here is now known to get off on fucking with powerful forces he thinks will never call him on his antics. He gleefully cited how he had “twisted the lion's tail”...without noting that to do so, you have to reach into the lion's cage to do it.

Considering that nothing good was gonna come of this divine, and destructive confluence of assholery on campus, he's lucky he didn't draw back a nub.

As for the “Po-Po”, my father used to say, “Give an idiot a hammer, and everything becomes a nail.” These idiots should never be given anything more lethal to carry than squeaky, clown hammers as they've proven themselves to clearly be undisciplined public menaces.

I think back to one of those crazy Baruch parties. Just off the Goddamn chain. It made Delta House keggers look like a DAR tea social. Debauchery? Hell yes. I should know. I had a girl sitting on my shoulders facing me as I balanced her there while...“dancing”. A janitor or someone who didn't get his bottle of Crown Royal as a secondary perk from the party throwers had called Five-O on us. And someone from downstairs relayed the message. “Po-Po” was in the house.

I slipped the girl off my shoulders. My buddy “L” put his shirt back on—and found the shirt for the toplesss girl he was dancing with, tugging it on her quickly. Weed was chucked into punch. Clothes tugged back on. The girls go-go-ing in their lingerie atop the huge marble mantle hopped down, and back into their Calvin Kleins.

Five-O came in to find...nothing. Just people standing around barely moving as the music was turned down low.

And then, just after the lead officer asked “What had been going on here?”, and “We got a complaint that you people were going berserk!”, you could hear a pin drop, save for the music—which was The Sugarhill Gang's “Rapper's Delight”. The officer yelled “So, there was nothing going on here? Nothing at all?”

To which the reply was the line in the song still playing in the background.

“Well there's a time to break, and a time to chill—to act civilized, or act real ill.”

And about thirty people just burst out laughing at once.

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