FBI Director Christopher Wray is sharing that in 2021, Law Enforcement officers were âbeing killed at a rate of almost one every five days,â and how violence against officers âdoesnât get enough attention.â
â60 Minutesâ correspondent Scott Pelley noted the 59% increase in murders of police officers in 2021.
âViolence against Law Enforcement in this country is one of the biggest phenomena that I think doesnât get enough attention,â Wray said during the interview, which aired Sunday evening.
Talking about why this is happening, Wray explained, âSome of it is tied to the violent crime problem as a whole. But one of the phenomena that we saw in the last year is that an alarming percentage of the 73 Law Enforcement officers killed in the line of duty last year were killed through things like being ambushed or shot while out on patrol. ⌠Wearing the badge shouldnât make you a target.â
Watch the interview below:
The year 2020 saw a 29% jump in murder in the U.S., which amounts to roughly 5,000 additional people killed compared to the year prior, as Pelley noted.
Wray explained that the coronavirus pandemic âcertainly didnât help.â Additionally, he said juveniles committing violent crimes, interstate gun trafficking, and âan alarming frequency of some of the worst of the worst getting back out on the streetsâ also contributed.
Between 2019 and 2020, U.S. murders increased 30%, which is the âhighest increase in rates of homicide in modern history,â CNN reports, citing U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The FBIâs data also showed an increase of nearly 30%.
Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at NCHS, previously told CNN, âIt is the largest increase in 100 years,â adding, âThe only larger increase since weâve been recording these data occurred between 1904 and 1905, and that increase was most likely â at least partly â the result of better reporting.â
He continued, âWe had states being added to what we refer to as the death registration areas, so we were counting deaths in more areas over time. We didnât have all states reporting until 1933.â
The New England Journal of Medicine published on April 20 updated data by the CDC that was recently released showing â45,222 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2020 â a new peak.â The firearm-related deaths include suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined.
