FBI: 51 officers murdered in ’14

96 total police deaths in line of duty last year

Of 96 American police officers who were killed in the line of duty in 2014, 51 were killed as a result of felonious acts, according to new statistics released by the FBI on Monday.

While the number of officers killed feloniously was up significantly year over year — there were just 27 officers killed feloniously in 2013, according to the FBI, the lowest number of officers murdered in the line of duty in at least a decade — it remains fewer than the 56 officers murdered in 2010 and 55 officers murdered in 2005.

Despite the year-overyear increase, the number of officers that the FBI says were murdered in the line of duty in 2014 was in line with the 10-year average. On average, 50.5 police officers per year have been murdered in the line of duty during the last decade. The FBI’s release last year gave no reason for 2013’s uncharacteristically low number of officers feloniously killed.

Only one of the officers feloniously killed in 2014 was by an unarmed person.

Of the other 50 officers, 46 were killed using firearms — 33 were killed with handguns, 10 with rifles and three with shotguns. Four officers were killed when they were struck or run over by a vehicle.

The FBI says that all of the officers killed were male, while 47 of them were white, two were black, and two were Asian.

In 29 of these cases, the suspect was charged with murder; in 19 cases, the killer is dead; and in three cases, the homicide is being investigated as capital murder of a law enforcement officer.

DARKO BANDIC/ASSOCIATED PRESS Children take shelter from the rain Monday in Sredisce ob Dravi, at the Croat-Slovenian border. Hundreds of migrants spent the night in rain and cold after being refused entry into Slovenia. Slovenia said some 5,000 people reached its borders Monday,...