FBI LEOKA: Thousands More Officers Were Assaulted in 2020 than in 2019

According to statistics reported to the FBI, 60,105 law enforcement officers were assaulted while performing their duties in 2020. These assaults were reported to the FBI by 9,895 law enforcement agencies. Based on these reports, there were 4,071 more officers assaulted in 2020 than the 56,034 assaults reported in 2019.

The data was released Wednesday in the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) portion of the FBI’s Law Enforcement Data Explorer.

Injuries and Weapons

•             Of the 60,105 officers who were assaulted in 2020, 18,568 (30.9%) sustained injuries.

•             44,421 officers were assaulted with personal weapons (e.g., hands, fists, or feet); 25.8% of these officers were injured.

•             2,744 officers were assaulted with firearms; 6.1% of these officers were injured.

•             1,180 officers were assaulted with knives or other cutting instruments; 9.7% of these officers were injured.

•             The remaining 11,760 officers were assaulted with other types of dangerous weapons; 16.8% of these officers were injured.

Circumstances

Of all officers who were assaulted in 2020, agencies reported officers were involved in these circumstances at the scenes of the assaults:

•             Responding to disturbance calls such as family quarrels or bar fights (29.6%)

•             Attempting other arrests (16.1%)

•             Handling, transporting, or maintaining custody of prisoners (12.6%)

•             Investigating suspicious persons or circumstances (8.8%)

•             Traffic pursuits or stops (8.4%)

•             Civil disorder, such as mass disobedience or riots (4.1%)

•             Handling persons with mental illness (3.9%)

•             Burglaries in progress or pursuing burglary suspects (1.3%)

•             Ambush situations (0.8%)

•             Robberies in progress or pursuing robbery suspects (0.8%)

•             All other types of circumstances (13.6%)

2020 assault data tables and companion documents are exclusively located on the FBI’s Law Enforcement Data Explorer (a subset of the Crime Data Explorer).

Data and statistics concerning officers feloniously killed, officers accidentally killed, and federal officers killed and/or assaulted in 2020 were previously released to the Law Enforcement Data Explorer in May 2021. With today’s release of assault data, all 2020 LEOKA data are now available.