News / Society

Sharp increase in 2016 police deaths: Report

Saturday, 26 November 2016 7:18 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 26 November 2016 7:28 PM ]

US police forces (file photo)

A research study shows that at least 61 law enforcement officers in the United States have been shot and killed on duty so far this year, underscoring growing anti-police sentiment across the country over police violence against civilians.

The fatality rate was published by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund on Friday, showing a 48 percent increase in comparison with 2015, when firearms were linked to 41 police deaths across the US.

Last weekend, four officers were targeted while conducting routine traffic stops in three US states of Texas, Florida and Missouri.

Earlier this month, two police officers were fatally shot in ambush-style attacks in Iowa.

Earlier this year, five officers in Dallas, Texas, and three officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were fatally shot after police killed two black men in separate incidents.

The latest attacks against police happened at a time when anti-police sentiment is high across the US due to a surge of unjustified killings of unarmed African Americans and other minorities over the past several years.

The use of excessive force by police has become the focus of national debate in America, particularly over high-profile killings of African-Americans by mainly white officers.

Over 55,000 people in the United States were either killed or wounded by police in 2012 alone, according to a new study by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland.

The study found that blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans are more likely to get arrested by police compared to white and Asian people.

In a separate report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), statistics show that firearms kill more than 33,000 people in the US every year, a number that includes accidental discharge, murder and suicides.

Today, it is estimated that there are between 270 million and 300 million guns in the US, about one per person, according to the New York Daily News.

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