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A Deadly Year for Police as Fatalities Soar
Miami Herald by Jay Weaver
Sept 14, 2007
- - Fatal attacks on police officers have surged nationwide this year, with 10 deaths in Florida alone.
Fatal shootings of police officers are surging from Florida to California. Thursday's deadly shooting of a Miami-Dade police officer and the wounding of three colleagues in a traffic stop add to a troubling trend. Just the day before, the last of three Odessa, Texas, police officers died following a weekend gun battle during a response to a domestic disturbance. Nationwide, police fatalities stemming from shootings, traffic accidents and other factors soared by 44 percent in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. That rate is on track for the second half of the year, the Washington-based group said.
WORRYING TREND - - So far this year, there have been 59 percent more fatal police shootings compared with the same period in 2006, the group said. Craig W. Floyd, chairman of the nonprofit group, called the trend alarming: ``We've never seen numbers like this from one year to the next -- nothing like this since 1978.'' Experts cite several causes: a violent crime uptick, easy access to firearms and increasingly deranged criminals. ''There are a lot of disturbed people out there,'' said Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York police officer and district attorney who lectures at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. ``They're extremely violent, and it's all too easy for them to get pretty sophisticated weapons to shoot not only one officer but multiple officers.'' Another factor: the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban three years ago. It applied to 19 semiautomatic weapons, which fire one round and automatically load each time the trigger is pulled.
LITTLE DEFENSE - - What are police doing to defend themselves? Working in pairs and wearing bulletproof vests. But even vests are vulnerable to assault weapons and ammunition. The fatal shooting in Miami-Dade follows others across the state, which has seen 10 mostly gun-related police deaths through mid-September, one more than in all of 2006. Last month, a Broward Sheriff's Office sergeant was killed by gunfire as he looked for stolen cars behind a store. Four days earlier, a BSO deputy was shot in the head during a traffic stop of a motorcyclist who ran several red lights. He survived. ''The bad guys have the element of surprise, they have the firepower and often times they get the benefit of lenience in the courts,'' said John Rivera, president of the Miami-Dade and Florida Police Benevolent Associations. ``How many cops does it take to get killed until we start paying attention?''