Intentional police deaths at 20 year high due to distrust and other factors

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Intentional killings of law enforcement officers hit a 20 year high in the United States in 2021, and criminologists say that number is only increasing.

Factors like the access to illegal weapons, distrust of law enforcement, lack of officer training, and lack of support for mental illness in many communities have all contributed.

The FBI reports an increase in gun violence and homicides across the country last year. It's affecting law enforcement too, with around a 55% increase in the number of line-of-duty deaths in 2021. That doesn't account for all the incidents where weapons were pulled or officers were shot and injured.

In 2021, 84 officers died from felonious assaults, including 61 officers who were killed by firearms, a 36% increase over the 45 officers killed by firearms in 2020.

Capt. Brian Leer, with the Boone County Sheriffs' Department, said most people the department interacts with are non-violent.

"By far the majority of people we interact with day in and day out are upstanding individuals," Leer said.

Leer said he has seen a rise in distrust growing over his years on the job.

"There is this movement towards not only a lack of respect but an outward disrespect towards law enforcement by a very small population of people. When Ferguson happened, there was like this questioning of law enforcement and the values and ethics and morals of law enforcement across the country," Leer said.

Following several killings of black Americans by police over the past few years, people's confidence in officers and officers' confidence in themselves has made a shift.

Chris Conner, a sociology professor said with so much distrust of the police it may be time to take a deeper look at policing practices.

"Maybe we do need to look at a different model of policing. These are the conversations that are happening throughout the research community," Conner said.

Locally, the number of crimes is down but is starting to tick back up.

"By far in the last 5-10 years we've seen an uptick in that we've seen people drawing weapons shooting at law enforcement here locally in Boone County and Columbia," Leer said. Unfortunately we've seen law enforcement have to defend their lives, suspects as well."

Just last week two Cole County deputies were allegedly assaulted on the same day, and on Sunday a deputy was shot in Randolph County.

Conner said there are resources working to reduce distrust in police. Locally, the Columbia police department has a community outreach unit.

"There is a kind of decline in trust in law enforcement we have seen going on for the last ten years, and there have been a lot of resources mobilized to improve people's trust in law enforcement so they've tried a lot of different initiatives to begin back that trust within communities towards police," Conner said.

Conner said more officer training could have a positive impact.

"Yeah, maybe more officer training could be a good thing, especially as we re-emerge from this pandemic and we're starting to get back to social life where we've kind of forgot how to socialize, how to interact," Conner said.