Callaway deputies among dozens of officers shot during traffic stops yearly
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
More than 40 law enforcement officers were shot last year during traffic stops, according to the National Blue Alert Network.
Of the 44 officers who were shot, 37 of them survived.
Two Callaway County deputies will be part of those statistics when 2024 numbers are tallied after they were shot during a Monday morning traffic stop.
Ron Hantz is a retired police officer and president of Pro Train Inc., a company based out of Indiana, that provides police training courses in 41 states nationwide. The company's most popular program is the S.T.O.P.S. program (Strategies and Tactics of Patrol Stops), an IADLEST-certified program that teaches officers how to safely get out of a patrol car and conduct a traffic stop.
"It's a very dangerous category, it's something that definitely hasn't gotten any better. Is it any worse? I'm not sure if it's any worse," Hantz said of traffic stops. "It's usually between 10 to 15% of officers overall are killed while conducting traffic-related duties."
Hantz says there are many factors an officer needs to consider before conducting a traffic stop such as the location of the stop, whether it is safe and how to make contact with the driver in the most strategic way presented in the situation.
"We give them a whole bunch of different options, but everything they're doing they're thinking of the safest way to conduct a stop or the safest way to make this happen and be safe while doing it," said Hantz.
"There's a lot of factors that go into this that we teach these officers to be looking for, little cues and then to take actions that will give them an advantage in a world where if somebody is evil, the officer is always going to be reacting to that evil."
Hantz says a very small percentage of traffic stops result in force being used, but it's still a dangerous task for an officer.
"He's [the officer] only got a fraction of a second to make the right decision and it's a very challenging job," Hantz said. "It's a very challenging position these officers are in that, you know, it's not just a game where you can hit reset."
In 2023, the Missouri State Highway Patrol conducted more than 340,000 traffic stops. Of those, 36.4% of drivers arrested during a traffic stop had a warrant out for their arrest, according to the Highway Patrol's traffic stops annual report for 2023.
In Missouri, 10 officers were shot in the line of duty, with one officer dying in 2023, according to the National Blue Alert Network. That officer worked for the Hermann Police Department.
The Callaway County deputies were shot early Monday on Interstate 70 while pulling over a Texas man, officials say. The suspect, Jonathan A. Beason, 37, of Medina, Texas, was killed in a shootout with the deputies, the sheriff's office and highway patrol said.
