Law Enforcement Officers Assaulted

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This page provides information about duly sworn local, state, and tribal law enforcement officers who were assaulted in the line of duty in 2005 and met certain other criteria.

Overview

• The FBI collected assault data from 10,032 law enforcement agencies that provided service to 221 million persons (74.6 percent of the Nation’s population). (Based on Table 63.)
• The law enforcement agencies that reported assault data to the FBI employed 485,048 sworn officers. Of these, 57,546 were assaulted while performing their duties.
• The rate of assaults was 11.9 per 100 sworn officers.
• There were 15,763 assaults on officers that resulted in injuries.

For information by region and population group, see Tables 63 and 64.

Injuries

• 27.4 percent of the 57,546 officers assaulted suffered injuries.
• Of the officers who were injured as a result of assaults with weapons:
• 29.1 percent of the officers were attacked with personal weapons.
• 13.4 percent of the officers were attacked with knives or other cutting instruments.
• 9.1 percent of the officers were attacked with firearms.
• 24.6 percent of the officers were attacked with other types of dangerous weapons.

More information about this topic is included in Tables 68 and 69.

Times

• For the seventh year in a row, the largest percentage of assaults of officers (14.4 percent) occurred from 12:01 a.m.-2 a.m.
• The smallest percentage of assaults of officers (2.7 percent) was from 6:01 a.m.-8 a.m.

More information about this topic is provided in Table 65.

Circumstances

• The largest percentage (30.5) of officers assaulted were responding to disturbance calls (family quarrels, bar fights, etc.).
• 12.8 percent of the officers assaulted were handling, transporting, or maintaining custody of prisoners.
• 11.1 percent of the officers assaulted were performing traffic stops or pursuits.

More information about this topic (including a complete breakdown of the types of circumstances in which officers were assaulted) is provided in Table 67.

Clearances

• Law enforcement agencies cleared 89.2 percent of the 57,546 assaults by arrests or exceptional means (i.e., when law enforcement could identify the perpetrator, but were unable to make an arrest due to circumstances beyond their control, such as the death or suicide of the subject).
• Agencies cleared the greatest percentage (90.9) of assaults against officers who were responding to disturbance calls.

More information about this topic is provided in Table 66.

Type of assignment

• 63.7 percent of the victim officers were assigned to 1-officer vehicle patrols.
• 16.7 percent of the victim officers were assigned to 2-officer vehicle patrols.
• 4.6 percent of the victim officers were performing detective or special assignment roles.
• 14.9 percent of the victim officers were performing other types of duties.

(Based on Table 67.)

Weapons

• The majority of officers assaulted (80.0 percent) were attacked with personal weapons such as hands, fists, or feet.
• 3.7 percent of the officers were assaulted with firearms.
• 1.8 percent of the officers were assaulted with knives or cutting instruments.
• 14.4 percent of the officers assaulted were attacked with other types of dangerous weapons.

More information about this topic is provided in Tables 69 and 70.

A breakdown concerning the weapons used against officers who were assaulted with injuries resulting is provided under Injuries.

Assault Table

• Methodology
• Criteria

• Roll over table numbers for table titles

• Table 63
• Table 64
• Table 65
• Table 66
• Table 67
• Table 68
• Table 69
• Table 70
• Table 71

Release Date: October 2006