U.S. Police, Suspect Death Totals Released: How Many Cops Killed In 2015?

Law enforcement officers in the United States suffered 41 “felonious deaths” in the line of duty during 2015, almost a 20 percent drop from the 51 cop killings the previous year, according to the FBI’s annual Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted report released Tuesday.

Nationwide, an additional 45 law enforcement officers were lost in accidental deaths. Line-of-duty assaults on police officers totaled 50,212 .

The question of whether this trend will continue for 2016 following several high-profile police shootings is still up in the air, however.

According to preliminary 2016 numbers from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) – which doesn’t differentiate between “felonious” and “accidental” deaths like the annual FBI report – there have been 103 officer fatalities from Jan. 1 through Oct. 18 this year, compared to 95 at the same period last year.

As of Oct. 18, Texas is leading the nation with 17 law enforcement officer fatalities this year, followed by Louisiana, eight, California, seven, and Michigan and Tennessee, both with five, the Memorial Fund reported.

40 YEARS OLD, 12 YEARS OF SERVICE

Among the FBI report’s other highlights:

• The average age of the officers killed feloniously in 2015 was 40, and the average length of service was 12 years.
• Of the 41 officers feloniously killed, 38 were male and three were female. More than half — 29 — were on vehicle patrol when the incidents happened. Thirty-eight of these 41 officers were killed with firearms, and 30 of those were wearing body armor at the time.
• Motor vehicles played a key role in the deaths of the 45 law enforcement officers accidentally killed in the line of duty. Twenty-nine were involved in automobile accidents, four were killed in motorcycle accidents and another seven were struck by vehicles while directing traffic, assisting motorists and executing traffic stops.
• Of the 50,212 officers assaulted while performing their duties last year, 14,281 (or 28.4 percent) sustained injuries. Seventy-nine percent of the officers who were assaulted in the line of duty were attacked with “personal weapons” (such as hands or feet).

SUSPECT FATALITIES

According to a project spearheaded by The Guardian, U.S. police killed 1,146 people nationwide last year.

The death total was reached by adding data from “traditional reporting on police reports and witness statements” and “regional news outlets, research groups and open-source reporting projects such as the websites Fatal Encounters and Killed By Police,” The Guardian stated.

See related article: 124 U.S. Cops Died This Year... But Police Killed 1,125

The Guardian’s total included people who were shot, Tasered and struck by police vehicles, as well as those who died in police custody. However, suicides and “self-inflicted” deaths during encounters with law enforcement were not counted in the study.

Blacks reportedly suffered a fatality rate more than twice as high as whites, and Asians suffered a fatality rate less than half of Caucasians.

The Guardian's total had no 2014 numbers for comparison.

See the full report online here.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced plans to create a national database to track police use of force and police killings of civilians. Until now, there has been no official nationwide effort to monitor the rates of police violence and killings in the United States.

• See related article: Justice Department Announces Plan to Track Police Killings Across US
• See related article: Alton Sterling Police Shooting: Second Video Emerges
• See related article: No Indictment for Officer Wilson in Shooting Death of Michael Brown

Photo: Flickr Commons, Bill Morrow

Graphic: Law Enforcement Officers Killed And Assaulted report, FBI