The number of law enforcement officers in the region killed on duty jumped sharply last year, and the area is on pace to equal those fatalities again. Five officers in the tri-state area died on duty in the first half of 2011. Ten officers were killed in 2010, including five in the first half of the year — an increase from the just three who died in all of 2009.
Nationwide, the number of law enforcement officers killed on the job is continuing to climb. Ninety-eight officers died in the first half of 2011, a 14 percent increase from the same time period in 2010, according to data released last week by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Last year, the total number of officers killed on duty rose by 37 percent.
| Officers killed on duty, Jan. 1-June 30 | ||||||
| Jurisdiction | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | |||
| D.C. | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Md. | 0 | 3 | 2 | |||
| Va. | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Nation | 61 | 87 | 98 | |||
“All of us hope that this is an aberration and not a trend,” said Mariah Hughes, the chief executive of Concerns of Police Survivors, which helps families of officers killed on duty.
So far this year, three officers have died in Virginia — a state police trooper killed in a King George County car accident and two Buchanan County sheriff’s deputies killed by a sniper at a crime scene. In Maryland, two officers have been killed — a Baltimore officer shot while responding to a fight at a nightclub and a state police trooper killed in a Howard County crash. No officers died in the District.
Traffic accidents have been the most frequent cause of death for the past 13 years, but were surpassed by firearms deaths for the first half of this year, said Steve Groeninger, a memorial fund spokesman. In 2011, traffic fatalities have dropped 17 percent, while firearms deaths rose 33 percent.
That pattern has held true in the region as well: While three officers have already been killed by gunfire this year, just one — a Maryland State Police trooper gunned down while working a security detail in Prince George’s County — died in a gun-related incident in all of last year.
That’s caused alarm for some police officials and advocacy groups.
“What scares me most is the gunfire,” said Richard Cheney, head of the Virginia chapter of COPS. “I tend to think the economy has a lot to do with it. People are willing to do things they wouldn’t normally have done.”
