The FBI has released preliminary data from its annual report on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA). The data shows that 2023 saw a 10-year high in officers assaulted.

Agencies providing data to LEOKA reported 79,091 officers were assaulted in 2023. Most officer assaults occurred when responding to simple assaults against a non-officer (6,783 incidents), followed by drug/narcotic violations (4,879).

LEOKA also reports that the number of officers feloniously killed—194—over the three-year period of 2021 (73), 2022 (61), and 2023 (60) was the highest number in any three-year period since 2003.

Information about cop killers from the 2023 LEOKA show there were 57 perpetrators, 54 were male, 28 were white, 8 were reported as having a mental illness, and there were 32 violent prior arrests/offenses from an unknown number of offenders.

From 2014 through 2023, the South had the most line-of-duty deaths yearly compared to other regions. There was a 38% decrease in line-of-duty deaths in the region in 2023 (20 deaths) compared to 2022 (32 deaths). Last year marked the lowest number of line-of-duty deaths in the South since 2015 (19 deaths). 

The number of officers assaulted and injured by firearms has climbed over the years, reaching a 10-year high in 2023 with approximately 466 officers assaulted and injured by firearms. 

The annual “Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted” publication will be released later this year and will consist of data tables on law enforcement officers who were feloniously and accidentally killed and assaulted in the line of duty in 2023. 

Also released today was 2023 information from the Law Enforcement Employee Counts Data Collection. Law enforcement agencies provide these counts to the FBI annually and account for all sworn law enforcement officers and full-time civilian employees. This information may be used by city, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to establish manpower needs, both number and makeup, to provide effective enforcement and protection.

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