SALT LAKE CITY — The FBI has released its yearly data and statistics regarding assaults on law enforcement working in the line of duty.
According to the report, 9,895 law enforcement agencies across the country contributed their yearly data which was released in the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted portion of the FBI's Law Enforcement Data Explorer.
“Sharing this information broadly every year is important because it draws attention to how we are doing, what are the threats, and what could we do to improve that,” said Dennis Rice, Special Agent-In-Charge for the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office. “As we report it, we draw attention to it, I think the lack of support sometimes law enforcement feels and when you see statistics that sort of fall in line with that it’s a moment to pause and reflect on what’s the cause, we don’t have a single cause for what’s causing this.”
An increase of more than 4,000 assaults on officers was reported from 2019 to 2020. According to the 2020 Crimes in Utah report from the Utah Department of Public Safety, 774 offenses against officers were reported by departments in the beehive state.
“For the year 2021, we had 59 law enforcement officers feloniously killed, the year before we had 39, so that’s over 50 percent increase which is really alarming,” Rice said.
In 2020, Ogden police Officer Nate Lyday was shot and killed while responding to a domestic dispute.
“It’s going out there knowing that any given day you could be laying your life on the line for others, people that you know, people that you don’t know,” Rice said.
