For several months we’ve been calling attention to the shocking disconnect between declining crime statistics and increasing assaults on police officers. The problem is growing more acute. The most recent statistics released show that violent attacks on LAPD officers are up by 29 percent over the same period last year. A recent Wall Street Journal story numbers this year’s assaults with deadly weapons on LAPD officers at 130.
On the afternoon of August 25, two LAPD officers investigating suspicious activity were fired on without warning, resulting in injury to one of the officers. Later that day, a man wielding a sharpened stick struck an officer who had responded to calls of a disturbance at a Wilmington-area apartment just after 11 p.m. Police shot and killed the suspect. The wounded officer is recovering.
Those attacks were among several since August 19 in which LAPD officers have come under gunfire. In another incident, officers from Rampart Division responding to a report of a disturbance on the night of August 27 were fired on in their unmarked patrol car before the suspect fled on foot. And days before, undercover officers were shot at in Encino on August 21 while confronting double-murder suspect Brent Zubek. Gang officers were shot at in South L.A. on August 19.
Chief Beck, speaking on KPCC, said the rise in violent assaults against the LAPD is of great concern. He said he cannot pinpoint exactly why the crimes are on the rise, but thinks it may have to do with new technology that has helped officers get to crime scenes earlier. "We don't spread police resources like paint, we put them where the crime is," he said.
"One of the things that's happened in Los Angeles is that police, because we've been able to reduce crime and because our information systems are better and our analysis of those are better, we make contact with a lot of people who are intent on committing violent crime and the means to do that," said Beck. "When you engage people at the enforcement level at a greater frequency, then you increase the number of forceful contacts that you have."
Another perspective on this troublesome phenomenon came in a recent USA Today story that reported nearly 40 percent of police officers fatally shot this year have been slain in ambush-style attacks or when they were surprised by suspects with firearms. The killings, many stunning in their brutality, have some law enforcement and Justice Department officials scrambling to provide additional protection or training for their forces, the newspaper reported.
USA Today reported that police officials and analysts say motivations for the killings stem from a wide range of social problems, from mental illness to increased desperation caused by domestic or economic pressures. Former Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian, now director of the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services office, said the "collision of stressors" often places officers "in the wrong place at the wrong time."
What is causing the rising number of assaults on police officers in Los Angeles and across the nation? We want to hear what you think is going on and what can be done to lessen the dangers police face every day.
