So Much for the "Ferguson effect": Killings of Cops are Down 25 Percent for the First Half of 2015

By Radley Balko
Jul. 23, 2015

The "Ferguson effect," you might remember, is a phenomenon law-and-order types have been throwing around in an effort to blame police brutality on protesters and public officials who actually try to hold bad cops accountable for an alleged increase in violence, both general violence and violence against police officers.

The problem is that there's no real evidence to suggest it exists. As I and others pointed out in June, while there have been some increases in crime in a few cities, including Baltimore and St. Louis County, there's just no empirical data to support the notion that we're in the middle of some national crime wave. And while there was an increase in killings of police officers in 2014, that came after a year in which such killings were at a historic low. And in any case, the bulk of killings of police officers last year came before the Ferguson protests in August and well before the nationwide Eric Garner protests in December.

Now, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund has released its mid-year report on police officers' deaths in 2015. Through the end of June, the number of officers killed by gunfire has dropped 25 percent from last year, from 24 to 18. Two of those incidents were accidental shootings (by other cops), so the number killed by hostile gunfire is 16. (As of today, the news is even better: Police deaths due to firearms through July 23 are down 30 percent from last year.)

That's the same number of cops who have died on the job of a heart attack so far this year. The leading cause of deaths for cops this year has been traffic fatalities: Car accidents have claimed 30 police lives, an increase of 20 percent over last year.

Of course, cops aren't just killed with guns. But the number of cops feloniously killed on the job is down, too. There have been 23 such deaths so far in 2015, down from 32 in 2014, a decrease of 28 percent. "Feloniously killed" doesn't necessarily mean intentionally killed. For example, one officer was struck and killed by a motorist who was updating a social media page on his cellphone. That motorist was charged with manslaughter. That's a felony, and it's a tragedy for the police officer and his family. But his death was due to a careless driver, not someone acting out animosity toward the police.

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