Police officers face greater danger

A man walks up to a squad car and opens fire on two sheriff’s deputies sitting inside. Two police officers are shot after responding to sounds of gunfire during a protest.

The shootings — one in Los Angeles and the other 2000 miles away in Louisville, Ky., less than two weeks later — are stark reminders of the dangers law enforcement officers face at a time when anger toward them in the wake of police killings of Black Americans, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, has boiled over.

“I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown told reporters at a recent briefing.

The suspect who shot the deputies in Los Angeles has not been caught, so it’s not known why he opened fire. And authorities have not said why the suspect in Louisville, who was captured, targeted the officers. Those shootings came during protests of a grand jury decision not to charge police for Taylor’s killing.

It is unclear how many times officers across the country have been shot at or otherwise attacked this year; police departments say such statistics are not readily available. But the few statistics available, such as those compiled by the FBI, show so far this year 37 law enforcement officers in the United States have been “feloniously killed” in the line of duty compared to 30 such deaths at this point last year. There are some 8,000 police agencies around the country, and tens of thousands of uniformed law enforcement officers.