Attacks on law enforcement increased, but fewer were killed in 2023, according to new federal data
CBSN
Washington — Sixty law enforcement officers across the country were killed in the line of duty last year — a decrease of one from the year prior — but assaults on officers in the field are on the rise, driven by increases in gun violence, according to an FBI report released Tuesday.
The statistics were collected from law enforcement agencies across the country — including state, local, and tribal precincts — and showed a slight decrease in overall officer deaths, continuing the downward trend from the recent high in 2021 of 73 officers killed in the line of duty.
Still, according to the report, the last three years (2021-2023) saw the highest collective number of law enforcement deaths "than any other consecutive 3-year period in the past 20 years."
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.