NCJ Number
143875
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 20 Issue: 7 Dated: (July 1993) Pages: 34,36,38-39
Date Published
1993
Length
4 pages
Annotation
An FBI research project focused on the incidents resulting in police deaths and their possible implications for police training and procedures.
Abstract
Uniform Crime Reporting Program staff members examined 51 cases that resulted in the deaths of 54 law enforcement officers and involved 50 offenders, selected from all officers feloniously killed between 1975 and 1985. They gathered information from police and correctional records and interviews with victims' peer officers and supervisors, investigators, and offenders. Results revealed that offenders were predominantly young white single males with high school education. A majority had a personality disorder, with antisocial and dependent personalities the most common. Seventy-four percent reported that they regularly carried a handgun and that they started carrying a handgun at age 18. Seventy-two percent of the police officers died from handgun wounds. More than three-fourths of the killers stated that they were involved in alcohol or other drugs at the time of the killings. Victims tended to be married white males with high school education, with an average age of 34, and 8 years of law enforcement service. A preponderance of the police fatalities occurred in the South. Findings suggested two possible areas in which law enforcement training and procedures may have affected the incident's outcome. These are approaches to vehicles and suspects and control or persons, situations, or both. These findings may help law enforcement agencies address survival training needs. Photograph and chart