It’s only human to want to scream, “Enough now!” in this situation. The Fraternal Order of Police has released a statement calling the killing of police officers in 2022 “beyond horrible.” This is described as a “stain on our society” in the most recent FOP report.
Three hundred twenty-three police officers were shot in 2022, an increase of 7% from the same time in 2020 and 13% from 2019. The Fraternal Order of Police has said as much (FOP). A shocking sixty police officers have been killed on the job since the new year began. This figure is a 28 percent increase from the corresponding time in 2020. The Fraternal Order of Police reports that 31 police officers were killed and 124 were injured due to 87 coordinated ambushes.
Twenty-seven officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety and twenty-one from the Arizona Department of Public Safety were shot in separate incidents. Three states had the most fatalities: Georgia (118), Kentucky (16), and California (15). On Wednesday morning, the FOP released further state-by-state data from its 2022 analysis; for more, go here.
According to Fraternal Order of Police president Patrick Yoes, this year has been “one of the most deadly years for law enforcement in recent history” (FOP). Yoes claims that the inadequate practices of appeasing prosecutors and unscrupulous politicians are to blame for the rise in violence against police and the countrywide crime epidemic. I’ve been a cop for 36 years, and this is the most out-of-the-ordinary thing that has ever happened to me.
Yoes said that “people will generally look at this data and simply see numbers,” even while the 2022 report is “not far behind” the 2017 report that stated more officers were shot in the line of duty than any previous year since FOP began tracking such incidents in 2015. Remember that these individuals symbolize heroes of both genders, Yoes emphasized. The Yoes, in this case, are the police enforcement officers that were ambushed, shot, and murdered.
If criminals are willing to target law enforcement officers openly, “we can’t begin to conceive what horrific atrocities they are ready to perform against law-abiding civilians,” as Yoes put it.
Yoes argues that public servants “responsible for the real-life ramifications” of rising crime rates are those who “embrace pro-criminal, revolving-door policies and make judgments that prioritize the interests of violent criminals over public safety.”
Yoes stated that the safety of communities is compromised when law enforcement agencies fail to bring violent offenders to justice or, even worse, when they release repeat offenders who have been detained for crimes that indicate a propensity to increase violence. Unfortunately, criminal prosecutors place innocent people in jeopardy. Concerned that crime and anarchy would increase if people disobeyed the law under the false impression that they wouldn’t be caught, he proposed a system of universal background checks to ensure that offenders were brought to justice.
“our political officials and community leaders to rise, support our heroes, and speak out against the violence against law enforcement officers in the new year and beyond,” Yoes said.