Law
Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 1999 (pdf)
Nationally, 42 law enforcement
officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 1999,
the lowest number in more than 35 years, according to the FBI.
Statistics published in Law Enforcement Officers Killed and
Assaulted, 1999, released today by the FBI's Uniform Crime
Reporting Program, indicate that 19 fewer officers were slain
in 1999 than in 1998.
Twenty-three of the 42 slain
law enforcement officers were employed by city police departments,
13 by county police and sheriff's offices, 5 by state agencies,
and 1 by a federal agency.
Firearms were used in 41 of the
42 deaths. Handguns were the murder weapon in 25 of the killings
by firearms, rifles in 11, and shotguns in 5. Of the officers
killed with firearms, 27 were wearing body armor at the time
of the incidents. Five officers were slain with their own service
weapons.
By region, 20 officers were murdered
in the South, 11 in the West, 6 in the Midwest, and 5 in the
Northeast.
Twelve officers were killed during
arrest situations: 6 were serving arrest warrants, 4 were trying
to prevent robberies or apprehend robbery suspects, and 2 were
investigating drug-related situations. Also, 8 officers were
slain while enforcing traffic laws, 7 while investigating suspicious
persons or circumstances, 7 while answering disturbance calls
(1 of which was a domestic disturbance call), 6 in ambush situations,
and 2 while handling prisoners.
Forty-nine suspects have been
identified in connection with the 42 deaths. Of these suspects,
39 have been arrested by law enforcement agencies, 5 were justifiably
killed by people other than the victim officers, and 5 committed
suicide after killing the officers.
Additionally, 65 officers were
accidentally killed in 1999 while performing official duties,
a decrease of 16 deaths when compared to the 81 accidental deaths
in 1998. Automobile, motorcycle, and aircraft accidents claimed
the lives of 51 of the 65 officers. Nine officers were accidentally
struck by vehicles, 3 were accidentally shot, 1 was killed in
a fall, and 1 was killed in an all-terrain vehicle accident.
A total of 55,026 line-of-duty
assaults were reported by 8,174 law enforcement agencies covering
over 72 percent of the total population of the United States
in 1999.
Of those line-of-duty assaults,
81.5 percent were committed with personal weapons such as hands,
fists, feet, etc. and 30.5 percent of these incidents resulted
in injury. Firearms were used in 3.2 percent of all assaults;
injuries resulted in 15.7 percent of these incidents. Knives
or cutting instruments were used in 1.8 percent of assaults with
22.1 percent of these victims sustaining injuries. Other dangerous
weapons were used in 13.4 percent of the assaults on law enforcement
officers, and 28.4 percent of these officers were injured.
The complete LAW ENFORCEMENT
OFFICERS KILLED AND ASSAULTED, 1999, is available on the
FBI's Internet site at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr.htm