I have returned to the contrived trappings of
civilization, but not from my usual sojourn in the wooded or rocky wilderness
left to the great Pacific Northwest, but from the confines of my own
home. All of the family – all of it – came to visit, the offspring and
grandchildren, and now all of the spouses and betrothed, and their
friends. Never such a dear and sizeable horde has dwelt beneath our
roof. It is a delight to see them all, even if it be through the haze of
exhaustion.
Topics galore are built up and awaiting my disquisition,
hungry as my vast public must be for my sundry opinions. (Why else, Dear
Reader, would you spend a brief nonce drifting over these words?
Welcome.) I will respond as circumstances permit.
The first item here that caught my eye was from the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer ('intelligent as a post' – was it Dave Barry?) that
briefly speaks of a sharp decline nationally in the deaths of policemen on
duty. (Is there a current politically correct term for 'policeman' that
doesn't offend the practiced sensibilities of feminists? I don't
care.) This is good news, certainly, but I can't resist a bit of
analysis.
Specifically, the study from the National Law Enforcement
Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) states that in 2013, the number of law
enforcement officers – "federal, state, local, tribal and
territorial" – who died in the line of duty fell to 111, compared to 121
in 2012 and 169 in 2011. [Note: corrections officers are included
in the tally. There are some who draw distinctions between corrections officers
and patrol officers – not so here.] This is the lowest total number of
LEO deaths on duty since 1959 (110).
Within those figures for 2013, they break out the number
of deaths due to "firearms" (as opposed to "traffic" and
"other") which this year came in at 33. This is the lowest
number in this category since 1887 (27).
Traffic-related incidents accounted for the highest
number of fatalities at 46, and the "other" category clocked in at
32, including 14 who died of heart attacks.
Some observations:
The NLEOMF study cannot resist the use of
percentages. Statistics are highly manipulative and meanings can be
fungible, particularly involving numbers this low. (A single death, of
course, is a tragedy, but here we are speaking of just numbers, compared to the
population as a whole or the population of LEOs, some 795,000 in the US.)
Thus, comments such as a reported drop of 4% in traffic-related deaths from the
last year (from 48 to 46) seem rather silly, a rounding error, and bring to
mind such observations that an economist uses decimal points to prove that he
has a sense of humor.
The comparisons in the article are to the numbers of only
one or two years ago. But 2011 saw a spike in numbers, slightly up from
the total of about 155 in 2010, but much higher than 2009 with about 128.
Then again, 2007 saw a spike of about 190, up from about 160 the year
before. In other words, the numbers are highly volatile and reasons for
numbers in this relatively small category subject to any number of explanations.
(A sharp rise of 240 deaths in 2001 was due no doubt to the 72 officers killed
as a direct result of the attacks of 11 September, listed in the
"other" category.)
An examination of the study itself, presented only as a brief aperçu, gives one a picture of how varied the
numbers can be from year to year.
One hopes that the trend continues, but trends always
continue until they stop (a social version of Newton's First Law).
This does not deter the NLEOMF from claiming that the
drop in traffic deaths and deaths by firearms can be attributed to their push
for greater safety considerations, and they may be right though I feel the
results are inconclusive. Traffic-related deaths may be down due to more
communities enacting restraints on police pursuit of fleeing criminals – a
controversy that raises the question of more crimes committed by the criminals
that get away.
(I remember many years ago in Corpus Christi, speaking
with an older gentleman who witnessed a police traffic accident. This was
back in the days when sitting on one's front porch was common, and late one
sultry evening he saw a police car come flying off the highway exit in front of
his home and crash while attempting to make the sharp turn at the immediate
intersection. The news reported that the policeman was in hot pursuit of
a fleeing suspect, but the gentleman smilingly disagreed with that analysis,
telling me that he never saw any other car that time of night. Perhaps,
he said, the policeman in question was enjoying the unwritten privilege of
making up his own traffic laws and came to suddenly realize why the standard
limitations apply to us all, but the public at large was spared the real
explanation.)
When we see pursuits on cable news channels, we are
joining the action after the full force of police cars and particularly
helicopters are in place and the criminal is by then only running out the clock
until he is captured. How many criminals escape outside large urban areas
that can afford such logistical, personnel and communications support?
Admittedly, the first thought that came to mind was the
Fox Butterfield Fallacy, a term coined by James Taranto of the
Wall Street
Journal after the series of articles by the
New York Times reporter
who raised the preposterous question of why the incarceration rate in the US
continued to rise despite a drop in crime. The NLEOMF study examines only the number of police fatalities, but does not address the
crime rate.
The way that the categories are delineated needs some
adjustment. Last year, two officers were stabbed to death while a third
was killed by a bomb (as it so happens, in a small city about 50 miles north of
here). These three are listed in the "other" category, distinct
from the "firearms" list. But these three were nevertheless the
victims of deadly assaults by criminals. What is the purpose of the
survey: are we focused on police safety, or use of firearms?
Likewise the sub-category of police struck by vehicles: we can imagine
an officer struck by a negligent driver while writing a ticket for a speeder he
has pulled over, but how many were struck as a result of vehicular homicide,
targeted and deliberately run down? On the other hand, two of the
shooting fatalities were accidental. It seems to me that a category of
"deadly assault" would be more appropriate.
As for the "firearms" category, the NLEOMF
claims that increased emphasis on protective gear is a factor in the drop, but
to give that a proper consideration, we would also have to know the number of
police shootings, i.e. the number of police shot who survived. To
understand this as a factor of crime rate, we would also have to know of the
number of incidents where police were shot at without effect. Simply
presenting the number of deaths from firearms is inadequate.
The best time of day to be a cop is between 2:00 and 3:00
in the afternoon (no deaths at all), apparently while criminals are resting up
from the activities of the night before (the worst time is 11:00 to midnight –
eight deaths). This reminds me that the same early afternoon time period
during the Viet Nam War seemed to show a similar plummet in firefights and
contacts, reflecting that both Charlie and us Round-eyes knocked off for
lunch. As for days of the week, the worst numbers of fatalities start
once the criminals are off their day jobs – Friday (22), Saturday (18), Sunday
(16) – though Tuesday oddly enough clocks in at 17.
As for firearm deaths, the largest reason was due to
ambush (7, down from 15 in 2012), but the fatalities in response to
disturbances was 9 (up from 4), broken into general disturbances (6) and
domestic disturbances (the dread of every cop) at 3. Fatal shootings
during traffic stops dropped to 3 from 10 the year before. But again,
numbers this statistically low over a period of only one year are basically
insignificant in terms of a trend.
[Note
: for some reason, Blogspot is not permitting the posting of illustrations. Please click on the
NLEOMF study to view the graphs.]
