police are safer under obama than they have been in decades

[smilesammich 10,727]

Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh said on Twitter that "Obama's words & [black Lives Matter]'s deeds have gotten cops killed." Rep. Roger Williams (R-Tex.) said, "the spread of misinformation and constant instigation by prominent leaders, including our president" contributed to the killings. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said the shooting had "roots" in the "anti-white/cop events illuminated by Obama."

These statements are part of a broader narrative of a "war on cops" carried out by the Obama administration and/or the Black Lives Matter movement, depending on whom you ask. It's certainly true that some shooters of police, such as the Dallas attacker, appear to be motivated by a hatred of white police officers or a twisted urge to seek revenge for police shootings of black Americans. But the simplistic and inflammatory notion of a "war on cops" is completely undercut by one fundamental data point: Intentional attacks on police officers are at historically low levels under President Obama.

Data from the Officers Down Memorial Page, which tracks law enforcement officer fatalities in real time, illustrates the point. During the Reagan years, for instance, an average of 101 police officers were intentionally killed each year. Under George H.W. Bush that number fell to 90. It fell further, to 81 deaths per year, under Bill Clinton, and to 72 deaths per year under George W. Bush.

Under Obama, the average number of police intentionally killed each year has fallen to its lowest level yet — an average of 62 deaths annually through 2015. If you include the 2016 police officer shootings year-to-date and project it out to a full year, that average of 62 deaths doesn't change.

It's worth pointing out that in 2016, year-to-date officer fatalities via shooting only are up 44 percent over last year, according to the numbers compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial Fund. But that's partially an illustration of how sensitive these numbers are to individual incidents: If you set the Dallas shootings aside, the year-over-year increase is only 17 percent. And as Eugene Volokh points out, the 2016 numbers are roughly on par with the numbers for the past 10 years.

These figures in the chart above include all incidents in which a suspect intended to kill a police officer — shootings, stabbings, assaults, bombings and vehicular assaults. They exclude such things as accidental shootings, job-related illnesses and traffic accidents. If you were to narrow it down to just shootings, the overall trend would be roughly the same: from 80 deaths annually under Reagan to 48 annually under Obama. Again, factoring in the 2016 shooting numbers, including Dallas, has a negligible effect on the average under Obama.

These falling fatality numbers aren't simply a function of better medical care for injured officers. Overall assaults on officers are down, too. In 1988, the last year of the Reagan administration, there were 15.9 assaults for every 100 sworn law enforcement officers according to the FBI. In 2000, at the end of the Clinton administration, there were 12.7 assaults for every 100 officers. By the end of the Bush administration that number fell further to 11.3. Under Obama in 2014, the most recent year for which the FBI has data, that number further fell to 9.0.

One area where the numbers are a little murkier is ambush attacks such as the Dallas shooting, where killing police officers is the sole intent of the crime. These are generally very rare, with the number of officers dying in these attacks each year in the single or double digits. But they have become slightly more common. During George H.W. Bush's administration (the first administration for which the FBI provides complete data) about eight officers died in ambush attacks each year. That rose to nine under Clinton, and 10 per year under George W. Bush and Obama (through 2014).

The small numbers here make these attacks no less tragic — one dead police officer is too many, regardless of the cause. But they have to be understood in the context of a striking overall improvement in officer safety.

It's tempting to place credit or blame for these figures with whichever president happened to be in charge at the time, as many conservatives have done in recent days. But in reality, police officer safety is much more closely connected to broader social trends than to whomever happens to be sitting in the White House.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/09/police-are-safer-under-obama-than-they-have-been-in-decades/

[John Miller 761]

Data from the Officers Down Memorial Page, which tracks law enforcement officer fatalities in real time, illustrates the point. During the Reagan years, for instance, an average of 101 police officers were intentionally killed each year. Under George H.W. Bush that number fell to 90. It fell further, to 81 deaths per year, under Bill Clinton, and to 72 deaths per year under George W. Bush.

Under Obama, the average number of police intentionally killed each year has fallen to its lowest level yet — an average of 62 deaths annually through 2015. If you include the 2016 police officer shootings year-to-date and project it out to a full year, that average of 62 deaths doesn't change.

What we're saying here is that officers became safer for decades and now that progress plateaus meaning that officers will no longer become safer than they were the year before. Thanks Obama!

Edited July 12, 2016 by John Miller

[smilesammich 10,727]

What we're saying here is that officers became safer for decades and now that progress plateaus meaning that officers will no longer become safer than they were the year before. Thanks Obama!

hush now, i'm waiting on our resident mathematical wizard to peruse the numbers and give the yay or nay on the obamayay. withhold yer gratitude.

[John Miller 761]

hush now, i'm waiting on our resident mathematical wizard to peruse the numbers and give the yay or nay on the obamayay. withhold yer gratitude.

Sorry, ma'am.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

Oh yes Obama is the police best friends.

This is trending to be the worse year ever

Epic fail

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Actually this fits my assessment in the OP studying police shooting incidents and correlates to better policing over-all. Police officers acting like just another, tougher gang is not good police work. A change in tactics to neighborhood policing, getting to know about the lives of the people who are being policed, getting to know even the bad actors and trying to improve their lives is probably a larger factor in the downward trend of violence against the police noted in this OP.

I am not at all surprised that the R's are deliberately getting their facts backwards. It's what they do.

But the facts presented in the OP also speak to the incorrect assumptions made by the anti-police BLM movement.

[smilesammich 10,727]

But the facts presented in the OP also speak to the incorrect assumptions made by the anti-police BLM movement.

http://blacklivesmatter.com/11-major-misconceptions-about-the-black-lives-matter-movement/

8. The movement hates white people. The statement “black lives matter” is not an anti-white proposition. Contained within the statement is an unspoken but implied “too,” as in “black lives matter, too,” which suggests that the statement is one of inclusion rather than exclusion. However, those white people who continue to mischaracterize the affirmation of the value of black life as being anti-white are suggesting that in order for white lives to matter, black lives cannot. That is a foundational premise of white supremacy. It is antithetical to what the Black Lives Matter movement stands for, which is the simple proposition that “black lives also matter.” The Black Lives Matter movement demands that the country affirm the value of black life in practical and pragmatic ways, including addressing an increasing racial wealth gap, fixing public schools that are failing, combating issues of housing inequality and gentrification that continue to push people of color out of communities they have lived in for generations, and dismantling the prison industrial complex. None of this is about hatred for white life. It is about acknowledging that the system already treats white lives as if they have more value, as if they are more worthy of protection, safety, education, and a good quality of life than black lives are. This must change.

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9. The movement hates police officers. Police officers are people. Their lives have inherent value. This movement is not an anti-people movement; therefore it is not an anti-police-officer movement. Most police officers are just everyday people who want to do their jobs, make a living for their families, and come home safely at the end of their shift. This does not mean, however, that police are not implicated in a system that criminalizes black people, that demands that they view black people as unsafe and dangerous, that trains them to be more aggressive and less accommodating with black citizens, and that does not stress that we are taxpayers who deserve to be protected and served just like everyone else. Thus the Black Lives Matter movement is not trying to make the world more unsafe for police officers; it hopes to make police officers less of a threat to communities of color. Thus, we reject the idea that asking officers questions about why one is being stopped or arrested, about what one is being charged with, constitutes either disrespect or resistance. We reject the use of military-grade weapons as appropriate policing mechanisms for any American community. We reject the faulty idea that disrespect is a crime, that black people should be nice or civil when they are being hassled or arrested on trumped-up charges. And we question the idea that police officers should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to policing black communities. Increasingly, the presence of police makes black people feel less rather than more safe. And that has everything to do with the antagonistic and power-laden ways in which police interact with citizens more generally and black citizens in particular. Therefore, police officers must rebuild trust with the communities they police. Not the other way around.

Oh yes Obama is the police best friends.

This is trending to be the worse year ever

Epic fail

hey sweetie, do me a favor and google larry gordon/berrien county and let me know if you think he's obama's secret love child..

Oh yes Obama is the police best friends.

This is trending to be the worse year ever

Epic fail

hey sweetie, do me a favor and google larry gordon/berrien county and let me know if you think he's obama's secret love child..

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

http://blacklivesmatter.com/11-major-misconceptions-about-the-black-lives-matter-movement/

hey sweetie, do me a favor and google larry gordon/berrien county and let me know if you think he's obama's secret love child..

hey sweetie, do me a favor and google larry gordon/berrien county and let me know if you think he's obama's secret love child..

You called me sweetie twice ?

[smilesammich 10,727]

You called me sweetie twice ?

well, what do you think?

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

well, what do you think?

About what

[smilesammich 10,727]

About what

-5 for inability to follow direction. eyes on the prize ric.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

-5 for inability to follow direction. eyes on the prize ric.

Sorry not in the mood today headache.?

Plus actually making a living today

[smilesammich 10,727]

Plus actually making a living today

cookie?

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

cookie?

cookie?

Pesky customers wanting to buy stuff

[John Miller 761]

cookie?

Pesky customers wanting to buy stuff

Weird that anybody would buy anything in this horrible economy.