The overnight casualty reports serve as a grim reminder of just how perilous it is to be a police officer. Open season has been declared. Some of the incendiary rhetoric stoking and inciting violence is coming from strange corners — the folks who define what is going on as “peaceful protests.”

In Oakland, California, federal officer Dave Patrick Underwood was killed by someone who fired at him from a vehicle. In New York, the scene of some of the most rampant looting, a police sergeant was mowed down in a vicious hit-and-run, and another officer struck by a vehicle. In Buffalo, an officer and a state trooper were injured when a car brutally plowed into a police skirmish line. In Las Vegas, two officers were struck by gunfire — one in the head. And in St. Louis, four more were shot.