Gunfire As Cause Of Death For Police Officers On Duty On The Rise

A Riverside County deputy was taken to a local hospital after being wounded in a shooting in Coachella, California, on Thursday night. The injured deputy was later reported to be stable, a local newspaper report said, citing a law enforcement source.

The police continued to search for the suspect, according to the tweets by the Office of the Sheriff, Riverside County.

Police radio transmissions indicated officers had identified a suspect, however, a description of the suspect was not yet been released, the Desert Sun reported.

Read: Austin Woman Shot Dead In An Officer-Involved Shooting After Attacking Cops With Knife

The shooting came seven months after two Palm Springs police officers were killed in a shooting last October. The incident was called an ambush by the police chief and district attorney and it was also mourned as a national tragedy, local reports said.

In the past two years, police officers killed in the line of duty in the U.S. has increased. Moreover, most of the police killings had gunfire as the cause of death.

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty in the U.S. increased in 2016 compared with the previous year. 145 officers were killed on the job in 2016 as opposed to 141 the previous year. Gun fire deaths or firearms-related deaths, not including accidental gunfire, in 2016 were 63 compared, compared to 41 in 2015, according to ODMP.

In 2017 so far, 51 police officers have died in line of duty, 18 of which were from gunfire. Gunfire is also the highest cause of death compared to others like heart attacks, motorcycle crashes and duty related illnesses, according to the website of National Law Enforcement Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP).

Figures taken from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), while featuring slightly different numbers, generally indicate the same trends as ODMP statistics.

Among the deadliest states with officer fatalities, Texas ranked the highest in 2016 with 17 deaths, followed by California with 10, then Louisiana with nine. Georgia was next with eight and Michigan with six, according to NLEOMF.

And in the history of law enforcement, no other department has lost more officers than the 768 lost by New York City. on a state-by-state basis meanwhile, Texas has suffered the most with 1,706 officer fatalities. The state with the fewest deaths is Vermont, with 23, according to the website of National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF).

Last year, Craig Floyd, president and CEO of NLEOMF, had said in a statement: "We must never forget that 900,000 law enforcement officers nationwide risk their lives every day for our safety and protection. This year, 135 of those men and women did not make it home to their families at the end of their shift," the Guardian reported.

Since the first police death recorded in the U.S. in 1791, over 20,000 law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty. 21,183 names are engraved on their walls. In the past 10 years alone, a total of 1,512 law enforcement officers have lost their lives while on duty at an average of one death every 63 hours or 151 per year, according to the website of NLEOMF.

The deadliest day in law enforcement history was 9/11. An estimated 72 officers were killed while responding to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.