SALON

Monday, Jan 24, 2011 10:30 PM UTC

Police under siege: A surge in gunfire on the job

A spike in officer shootings and a continued increase in gun sales begs for a connection, but is there one?

By

Topics: Gun Control, Crime,

Police under siege: A surge in gunfire on the jobA heavily armed SWAT team member walks away from the scene where three officers were shot Monday, Jan. 24, 2011 in south St. Petersburg, Fla. Police say a gunman suspected of killing two Florida police officers and wounding a U.S. marshal during a shootout has been found dead. St. Petersburg Police spokesman Michael Puetz says the suspect was found dead when officers went into the home Monday afternoon, about six hours after the shootout. Puetz said officers originally went to the home to arrest 39-year-old Hydra Lacy Jr. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)(Credit: AP)

Type “police shooting” into Google News and the search results read like a memorial list of the nation’s finest. Indeed, the past week has revealed a geographically indiscriminate trend in violence against police that spans the entire country. With the Arizona massacre still tugging a sensitive wake and gun sales surging, what does it all mean?

The most recent police shooting occurred Monday morning in St. Petersburg, Florida, where two officers were killed while serving a U.S. marshal’s warrant.

In another incident on Sunday evening, an officer stopped an SUV for speeding in Lincoln City, Oregon, before the driver unloaded numerous shots that left the patrolman in critical condition.

Also on Sunday, an Indianapolis  police officer was shot twice in the face and once in the thigh during a routine traffic stop. Officer David Moore remains in a coma while investigators probe 60-yr-old suspect Thomas Hardy.

In a third Sunday attack, four officers were injured when 38-yr-old Lamar Deshea Moore entered a Detroit, Michigan precinct and opened fire. As of Monday, two officers remain hospitalized.

These are, sadly, just to name a few.

It is inarguable that the job is a dangerous one, but police officers seem to be fighting an uphill battle that’s proved particularly steep in 2010 (and now 2011). The Uniform Crime Report posted that on-duty officer deaths fell in both 2008 and 2009. But in 2010, policemen killed on the job rose by nearly 40 percent, the greatest increase since 1974.

“In 2009 we’ve seen 95 officers that were killed in the line of duty, and in 2010, we’ve seen 162 officers,” says Sgt. Rob Petry of the West Virginia State Police.

The four attacks since Sunday have increased the number of police deaths in 2011 to 14. So far this year, there have been four more deaths by gunfire than in January of last year. Though hardly a month’s worth of data, this new year seems to be continuing the unfortunate trend of police attacks.

And we still have about a week to go.

With such prominent gun violence, it’s easy to hail accusations about how an increased sale of firearms is fueling the trend. And yes, the sale of guns has swelled in the past couple of years. Between 2008 and 2009, the number of background checks — the measurement used to federally track gun sales — rose by ten percent, according to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). In 2010 there was still an increase, though to a much lesser degree, at just under three percent.

In fact, you can draw an inverse correlation between police violence and gun sales. Police violence was down by a lot in 2008 and 2009, precisely at a time when firearm sales soared. And when attacks on officers spiked in 2010, gun purchases saw the smallest increase since 2004.

Then there’s the fact that Glock semi-automatic pistols — the same brand used by Jared Loughner in Tuscon — flew off the shelves just days after Loughner opened fire on January 8. Sales rose, according to gun-shop owner Greg Wolff, because “people get worried that the government is going to ban stuff.”

Three officers — two in Miami and one in Cleveland — were shot with Glock semi-automatic weapons in the past two weeks.

Did the Tuscon shootings have anything to do with the spike in police violence? (Remember the “correlation does not necessarily mean causation” rule.) But there is a disturbing trend and an increasingly pressing need to revisit the conversation on gun control, an issue on which Obama has been deafeningly silent.

Amy Steinberg is an editorial fellow at Salon. More Amy Steinberg.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 6 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations