Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Aug;19(3):1041-1066.
doi: 10.1111/1745-9133.12507. Epub 2020 Jul 20.

Gun victimization in the line of duty: Fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults on police officers in the United States, 2014-2019

Michael Sierra-Arévalo  1 , Justin Nix  2
Affiliations

Gun victimization in the line of duty: Fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults on police officers in the United States, 2014-2019

Michael Sierra-Arévalo et al. Criminol Public Policy. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Research summary: Using open-source data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), we analyze national- and state-level trends in fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults of U.S. police officers from 2014 to 2019 (N = 1,467). Results show that (a) most firearm assaults are nonfatal, (b) there is no compelling evidence that the national rate of firearm assault on police has substantially increased during the last 6 years, and (c) there is substantial state-level variation in rates of firearm assault on police officers.

Policy implications: GVA has decided strengths relative to existing data sources on police victimization and danger in policing. We consider the promises and pitfalls of this and other open-source data sets in policing research and recommend that recent state-level improvements in use-of-force data collection be replicated and expanded to include data on violence against police.

Keywords: danger; firearm assault; gun violence; policing.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors confirm that they have no conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

None
6-year average rate of firearm assault on police by state, 2014–2019
None
National rate of firearm assault on police, 2015–2019
FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Monthly firearm assaults on U.S. police, 2014–2019
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
National rate of firearm assault on police, 2014–2019
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Total firearm assaults on police by state, 2014–2019
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
6-year average rate of firearm assault on police by state, 2014–2019
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
6-year average rate of firearm assault on police by state, 2014–2019
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. AAAS. (2019). Retraction of the research article: “Police Violence and the Health of Black Infants.” Science Advances, 5(12), eaba5491. 10.1126/sciadv.aba5491 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alpert GP (2016). Toward a national database of officer-involved shootings. Criminology & Public Policy, 15(1), 237–242. 10.1111/1745-9133.12178 - DOI
    1. Alpert H (1948). National series on state judicial criminal statistics discontinued. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1931–1951), 39(2), 181. 10.2307/1138148 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Altheimer I, Schaible LM, Klofas J, & Comeau M (2019). Victim characteristics, situational factors, and the lethality of urban gun violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 34(8), 1633–1656. 10.1177/0886260516652264 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Azrael D, Hepburn L, Hemenway D, & Miller M (2017). The Stock and Flow of U.S. Firearms: Results from the 2015 National Firearms Survey. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 3(5), 38. 10.7758/rsf.2017.3.5.02 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources