File Anthony Behar
NEW YORK (77WABC) — A new report says more police officers were killed in the line of duty during President Joe Biden’s first year in office than any other year since 1995.
According to the FBI’s database on officers killed in action, 73 officers were intentionally killed in the line of duty in 2021 — compared to 46 in 2020. That’s a nearly 59 percent increase.
“We believe it’s a combination … of the George Floyd protests — riots, if you will; a general feeling of a preference for less law enforcement; and less prosecution and less policing,” Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and a 20-year police veteran, told Fox News. “Law enforcement officers have essentially been marginalized and demoralized and cast aside and encouraged now to enforce the law. And so we’ve seen massive jumps in the homicide rate in cities across America.”
The FBI database also says 74 officers were killed intentionally while on the job in 1995.
The Heartland Institute said one of the reasons for the increase in police officer killings has to do with a rise in “ambush” or unprovoked attacks on police.
