59% More Police Killed Under Biden Than Trump: Report

KEY POINTS

73 officers were intentionally killed on the job in 2021
Only 46 cops were killed in the line of duty in 2020
The last time more than 72 officers were killed on the job was in 1995

More cops have died in the line of duty under President Joe Biden’s administration than any other president since 1995, a new report found.

Throughout Biden’s first year in office in 2021, 73 officers were found to have been intentionally killed in the line of duty. In comparison, only 46 police officers were killed under former President Donald Trump’s last year in office in 2020. That is a nearly 59% increase from 2020 to 2021, according to data from the FBI’s Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program.

The last time more than 72 police officers were killed in the line of duty was in 1995 when 74 officers died on the job. The highest number of officers killed on duty since then was 72 in 2011, an analysis conducted by the Heartland Institute found.

Additionally, ambush attacks or unprovoked attacks against officers under the Biden administration’s first year increased to 32. There were only 10 cases of such killings recorded during Trump’s last year in office. The number of unprovoked attacks in 2021 exceeded all previously recorded figures dating back at least 1987, the Heartland Institute noted in its report.

"Until and unless we see some leadership — both in the White House and in individual cities, district attorneys that are willing to hold police accountable when they're wrong but are willing to support them when they're right — we're going to continue to speak up not only with increasing levels of violent crime but increasing numbers of assaults and the killing of law enforcement officers," Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) and a 20-year police veteran, told Fox News.

The number of cops killed has grown since May 2020, when numerous “Black Lives Matter” protests were held nationwide after Minneapolis police officers killed 46-year-old black man George Floyd while in their custody.

Video footage taken of the May 25 incident showed officer Derek Chauvin continuously pressing Floyd to the pavement with his knee on the victim’s neck. Floyd was also seen desperately gasping for air and pleading that he couldn’t breathe but was ignored by the officers. He later fell unconscious and stopped breathing. Floyd died that night.