Law Enforcement Officer Safety

By Brittany Cunningham, Jessica Dockstader, Zoe Thorkildsen

Officer safety is of critical importance in an era of increased risk for law enforcement officers. Law enforcement officers (hereafter, “officers”) respond to some of the most unpredictable, traumatic, and violent encounters of any profession.1 Although much of an officer’s workday entails repetitive interactions, some calls for service or self-initiated interactions by police officers may escalate into dangerous encounters. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program, between 2010 and 2018, an average of 51 officers died in a felonious killing per year. LEOKA defines a felonious killing as an “incident type in which the willful and intentional actions of an offender result in the fatal injury of an officer who is performing his or her official duties.” Regardless of how officer line-of-duty deaths, assaults, or injuries occur, the consequences are tragic and complex, affecting officers’
work and home life.2 Just as de-escalation, defusing, and crisis intervention tactics are paramount today, so is officer safety. This brief provides an accessible resource for law enforcement agencies, line officers, and their stakeholders (e.g., policy-makers, training instructors) to inform the development of targeted training, policies, and practices to promote officer safety while in the line of duty. Specifically, this brief offers the following:

•  a summary of officer safety risks related to calls for services, traffic-related encounters, ambushes, and blue-on-blue encounters;

• recommendations for promoting officer safety related to tactical preparedness; and

• real-world policing initiatives that serve as examples of practices in the field to improve officer safety.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2021. 24p.