Do you dare to search for pressure cooker now?

As I thought this was rather important to this discussion, I thought I would take the time out to look this up. Now, I cannot seem to find an average for how many police officers have been killed in the line of duty, it does appear to be less than the number of suspects killed by officers (However, this does not speak in anyway toward the cause of the altercation or whether or not the officers life was in danger and he was just better trained and prepared than the suspect).According to the FBI, in 2012 there were 47 officers killed in the line of duty around the United States, and they specify that these were felonious killings, not accidental deaths. The high appears to be in 2011 when law enforcement suffered the loss of 72 officers across the nation. FBI releases 2012 preliminary statistics for law enforcement officers killed in the line of dutyNow, when we look at criminals killed by law enforcement, whether justified or not, then the total number of suspects killed in 2012 was 587, or 540 more than the officers killed in the line of duty. (Again, this does not remove justified shootings from the times when officers did kill a suspect). List of killings by law enforcement in the United States 2012Now, funny enough, while the wiki page says that approximately 400 of these deaths are the result of justified homicide yearly, it still puts them over the deaths of law enforcement officials by 140 for the year 2012. Also, it seems that there is no one that is tracking the number of times that police used deadly force on an individual who was actually unarmed, making it very difficult to find out how many were actually unjustified. But, if anyone would like to go through every story listed in the wiki for each month, you could come up with a determination of whether or not shooting was the best plan in each of the 587 deaths.As I see it, ringo, you were incorrect in the idea that more police officers lose their lives than suspects do during commission of/attempt to stop crimes. However, I think the real telling thing is:A. The lack of information available about unjustified use of deadly force. It does speak to trying to hide the exact totals as to whether or not police force was justified.B. The fact that the estimate of justified killings is so high (approx. 400), means that police must be constantly aware because many of these times it has been their life or the suspects.My final verdict, more information should be gathered and recorded to verify the accuracy of the data and intelligent decision making should be practiced by those who have sworn to protect and serve, which could come from perhaps a more intense training regimen...

My mistake, then. You are correct, I am not sure if I can find information about the number of in the line of duty injuries sustained by police officers, but I will do what I can and see if the FBI has stats on that as well.As for the other data I posted, I think it is exactly what we should have expected to see. Removing the justified use of deadly force, it leaves the officers killing 3 suspects for every one officer killed. This makes sense when you consider that the officers are also expected to be more prepared and better trained than the individuals they are attempting to apprehend. Now, if you include the justified use of deadly force, then we come to about 12.5 suspects killed for every officer killed. Now, in 2011, there were 794,300 Police Officers in the United States, and 12,408,899 arrests were made in that year. This makes the criminal to officer ratio 15.62 to 1. So, these stats also fit with showing that the better Trained individuals are able to lessen their casualties.Now, onto the point you were actually trying to make, and I believe that you were correct. So, in 2012 we had 47 officers killed in the line of duty. However, according the same FBI link from my previous message, this same year there were 54,774 officers assaulted in the line of duty. Only 26.6 percent of these officers sustained injury. So, injured in the line of duty would be about 14,570 officers injured while attempting to do their job. So, ringo, you were wrong, but only because you erred on the cautionary side and gave your opponent a huge benefit of the doubt. The actual ratio is, for every officer killed in the line of duty, there are 310 officers that are injured during their attempts to protect and serve.To bring this onto the topic, I would then not consider the general nice attitude and good treatment of the individuals at the home as excessive. They asked to search, the owner knew he had nothing to hide and allowed it. The department could have done a little more research into the complaint before going. I would think that this means that to arrive on a terrorism tip with 6 officers, considering the possible dangers, seems to be the correct decision on the part of the department to protect the safety of its officers. I can see both sides of the issue. If they had researched the individuals who lived at the house more, they could have probably avoided going there altogether. But, think about it, this was right after the Boston bombing, imagine if the story had come out differently after this event; The police had received a warning and done nothing, which you know some news outlets would spin the story as. There would have been the opposite outrage about not trying to protect the citizens, instead of the current one we have of taking away rights, none of which were taken away.D'oh - Added by edit - Ringo, I still misinterpreted you. The ratio you were looking for is officers using deadly force versus officers injured, the ratio there would be: 24.82 to 1. So for every criminal that a police officer is put in the situation where he or she uses deadly force, 24.82 other officers are injured in the line of duty. This could have some overlap, such as a situation where the officer was injured and still managed to use deadly force. So I say you are quite less wrong than I thought, it was only a twice the guess you had made, which is pretty good on your part.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

Sorry, I thought this was in the same link that I used before, but it was actually from the 2011 statistics. FBI Releases 2011 Statistics on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and AssaultedIt does state that these officers were injured by either:A. Personal Weapons (Hands, feet, fists, etc...) - 79.9%
B. Firearms - 4%
C. Knives or other cutting instruments - 1.8%
D. Other dangerous weapons - 14.3%It does not seem to be including traffic accidents or other accidents, but rather events of actual assault. Whether or not the assault required deadly force would, I think, be very difficult information to find. But, yeah, I definitely agree that it makes the statement that officers are super trigger happy seem very incorrect, especially considering that deadly force was used in a whopping .0047% of arrests made in the year 2012. (This is from the original information I posted, plus the total number of arrests from my second message).