“A stain on our society.” That’s how a spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police described the latest figures they compiled for 2023. The FOP recorded more shootings of on-duty police officers last year than in any year since they began keeping records. There were 378 officers shot, with 46 of them being killed. They are reminding us that the war on cops is very real. These were not all shootings that took place when law enforcement cornered a violent suspect during a pursuit. Many of them were simply ambush shootings by evil people who took the police off guard and attempted to assassinate them. There should be a lot more outrage about this among the public and in the media, but it remains a largely underreported story. (Daily Wire)

There was a record-breaking number of law enforcement officers shot in the line of duty in 2023, according to report from the National Fraternal Order of Police.

In 2023, there were 378 officers shot, a 60% increase since the FOP began tracking data back in 2018. The data also showed that 46 police officers were killed. “These horrifying statistics are a grim reminder of the War on Cops in this country. A stain on our society,” the FOP said.

“Last year, over 330 police officers were shot in the line of duty. With the COVID-19 pandemic behind us and after so many Americans have seen the tragic consequences of the defund the police movement, it was our hope that these numbers would be a high-water mark,” FOP President Patrick Yoes said. “We were wrong.”

The FOP put out the grim news on Twitter.

The National FOP report on officers shot in 2023 has just been released and the results are horrifying!

378 officers shot, highest number since we started tracking the data.

60% increase in officers shot since 2018.

115 ambush attacks that resulted in 138 officers shot.

46… pic.twitter.com/aR2vOeyi2b

— National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) (@GLFOP) January 2, 2024

As you can see, the ambush statistics that I mentioned above are not at all trivial. Of the 378 officers who were shot, more than one-third of them (138) were victims of ambush attacks. Some of them were simply on a break when they were attacked while others were in their own homes. This is reprehensible.

What we’re seeing is the end results of the idiotic and highly dangerous “defund the police” movement. It’s not just that these liberal efforts have led to skyrocketing crime rates, particularly in larger cities. They have managed to breed hatred for the cops among the people they are intended to protect and serve. Some wanted to defund the police. Others called to abolish the police. When they didn’t get their way, some of the most radical obviously decided to try to drive the police toward extinction.

For many years now I have been pushing for both state and federal laws that would mandate the death penalty for anyone who kills a uniformed police officer in the line of duty. Such penalties may or may not deter others from trying the same thing, but it would definitely cut the recidivism rate to zero for the ones we manage to catch.

Some might argue that the police don’t deserve any special type of legal protection beyond that given to the average citizen. Most of the police officers I’ve spoken with generally tend to agree. But when someone kills a police officer, they aren’t just taking the life of one person. When you attack the uniform of the police, you are attacking the entire system of law and order that we rely on to maintain a civil society. It’s a much larger crime than “just murder.” It’s a declaration of war on our system of justice.

These numbers are tragic and they must be brought down. That will require the work of not just Washington but governors, mayors, and city councils across the nation. There is a war taking place on the streets against gangs and organized criminal rings. We don’t need hall monitors with clipboards trying to “de-escalate tensions.” We need warriors. We need the police.