I entered policing in 1970 and retired 42 years later. Policing has always been dangerous. In fact there are far fewer intentional homicides of officers than there were back then. Officers killed in traffic incidents have typically outnumbered those feloniously killed.
We worked for years to bring down the number of police deaths. Better training and equipment, development of instant communications capabilities, higher salaries and better educated police officers, tough laws and sentencing guidelines, enhanced sentencing of violent felons, aggressive prosecutors, and police departments that took a proactive approach to policing where LE had the initiative, all worked to bring down the numbers of police homicides, and crime in general. In truth, body armor probably did more than anything to reduce those deaths.
But the number of assaults on officers has increased a great deal as have the number of those feloniously killed. What I have seen occurring in the last couple of years is taking the initiative away from law enforcement and giving it to the lawless, and to the media.
Many agencies with sane political leadership and backing have not changed and have continued addressing crime aggressively as they always have but most agencies are proceeding with caution in this environment where the officers are presumed to be wrong. I predict that the pendulum will swing back the other way, but it will be a climb to get out of the current rut of lawlessness and failure to support LE in many of these big cities.
