The increase in violence against police officers far outstrips the rise in general violent crime, rising 59 percent in 2021, FBI Director Christopher Wray told CBS News’ 60 Minutes on Sunday.
“Violence against law enforcement in this country is one of the biggest phenomena that I think doesn’t get enough attention,” he said, adding that, in 2021, “officers were being killed at a rate of almost one every five days.”
Wray hasn’t specified the exact percentage of the officers, killed specifically in police raids, but noted that many of the 73 deadly wounded were killed in ambushes or while out on patrol simply for being a police officer.
“Wearing the badge shouldn’t make you a target,” he said.
Commenting on the 29 percent increase in the overall murder rate, which accounts for nearly 5,000 people, the FBI director noted that the coronavirus pandemic has also contributed to the high violence rates.
“Certainly, the pandemic didn’t help,” Wray said in an effort to explain the cause of the rise in violent crime, also citing issues like more juveniles committing violent crime, interstate gun trafficking, and “an alarming frequency of some of the worst of the worst getting back out on the streets.”
According to a report by the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), issued earlier this month, 101 officers received gunshot wounds in the line of duty from January to April 1 this year, and 17 of them were killed. This is a 43 percent increase compared to the number of officers shot during the same period last year and a 63 percent increase compared to 2020.