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Drug Policing Not a Very Dangerous Job, Stats Again Show

The FBI reported Monday in this year's edition of Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted that 48 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty last year. In contrast to public impressions of the danger of drug law enforcement -- impressions assiduously cultivated by countless law enforcement spokesmen -- none of them were killed while enforcing drug laws.

lioness statue, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial (courtesy wikipedia.org)
That's in line with other compilations of officer deaths. According to statistics on police line of duty deaths compiled by the Officer Down Memorial Page, only three law enforcement officers were killed enforcing drug laws last year, and those three were not undercover narcs doing drug buys or SWAT team raiders busting down doors, but DEA agents who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

One officer, Michael Crawshaw of the Penn Hills Police Department in Pennsylvania, was killed responding to a drug-trade murder in which one drug trafficker killed another over a drug debt. Another officer, Dallas Police Senior Corporal Norman Stephen Smith, was killed executing an arrest warrant on a drug dealer, but the warrant was for aggravated assault, not a drug offense. Although both cases probably would not have happened without the existence of drug prohibition, in neither case were the officers killed enforcing drug laws.

According to historical data provided to the Chronicle by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which also compiles statistics on police line of duty deaths, last year's low death toll among officers enforcing the drug laws is not a fluke. In the decade between 1978 and 1988, an average of 6.5 officers were killed each year; in the following decade, the number was 6.2; and in the last 10 years, an average of 4.3 officers were killed each year enforcing the drug laws. The single bloodiest year for drug law enforcement was 1988, when 12 officers died.

In 2008, the number of police who died maintaining drug prohibition was seven; in 2007, it was four; it 2006, it was five; in 2005, it was four. When placed in the context of the more than 1.5 million drug arrests made in each of those years, it is clear that only one in every several hundred thousand drug arrests leads to an officer's death. During the past 10 years, the odds were less than 1 in 350,000.

But while drug law enforcement is not in itself that dangerous for police, certain police tactics raise the risk -- for both law officers and the recipients of their attention. Of the 20 officers killed enforcing the drug laws since 2005, nine were killed in drug raids and five were killed doing undercover work.

Of the 48 officers feloniously killed in the line of duty last year, 15 were ambushed, included four in a mass killing in Washington state, four more in a mass killing in Oakland, and three more in a mass killing in Pittsburgh. Eight were killed in attempting to arrest suspects, eight were killed during traffic stops, six were answering disturbance calls, five were killed in SWAT-style raids, four were investigating suspicious persons or circumstances, and two were working with prisoners.

Forty-five of the 48 slain officers were killed with firearms and three were killed with vehicles used as weapons. Of those slain with firearms, 28 were killed with handguns, 15 with rifles, and two with shotguns.

According to the FBI, another 47 officers were killed in accidents while performing their duties. The majority of them, 34, died in auto accidents. Those numbers are down compared to recent years.

Washington, DC
United States

Gunmen Kill Local Official, Son in Ciudad Juarez

Localização: 
Ciudad Juárez, CHH
Mexico
Gunmen in the drug prohibition violence-ridden border city of Ciudad Juarez killed Rito Grado Serrano, regional president of the community of El Porvenira, and his son, Mexican officials said Sunday.
Publication/Source: 
The Associated Press
URL: 
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j4DDT0mcUi3ZYunie0VOys6XzwpA?docId=9d585b17cd7c4224a1422f558944df78

Cancel Your Mexico Plans: Authorities Release Travel Warning

Localização: 
TX
United States
Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw issued a travel warning advising Texans that nobody should head to Mexico at this point. McCraw stressed the advisory due to the increased drug prohibition violence and threat from drug trafficking organizations.
Publication/Source: 
KENS (TX)
URL: 
http://www.kens5.com/home/Cancel-your-Mexico-plans-authorities-release-travel-warning-104961924.html

Drug Traffickers Deliver Decapitated Head of Police Commander Investigating Falcon Lake Murder to Mexican Military

Localização: 
Ciudad Miguel Aleman, TAM
Mexico
A Mexican police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake was decapitated and his head was found in a suitcase outside a Mexican Army base.
Publication/Source: 
Manila Bulletin (Philippines)
URL: 
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/281972/mexican-police-brass-beheaded

"Zetas" Drug Prohibition Gang Grows, Sows Fear in Mexico

Localização: 
Mexico
A decade ago, they were a small group of elite Mexican soldiers who saw a chance to make a lot more money working as hitmen for powerful drug trafficking organizations. Today, the "Zetas" are the most feared gang in Mexico. Their vicious tactics, geographic reach and expansion into new illegal businesses presents a new kind of threat in a drug prohibition war that has already killed 29,000 people since late 2006.
Publication/Source: 
Reuters
URL: 
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69B3LZ20101012

Memorial Service Held for American Allegedly Shot by Drug Trafficking Organization

Localização: 
TX
United States
The search continues for the body of a tourist, David Hartley, believed to have been killed on a Texas lake, which separates the United Stated from Mexico. Friends and family of Hartley held a memorial service for him, without his remains.
Publication/Source: 
KOLD (AZ)
URL: 
http://www.kold.com/global/story.asp?s=13305943

Drug Trafficking Organization's Hitmen Kill Eight Policemen in Mexico

Localização: 
SIN
Mexico
A convoy of hitmen ambushed a group of traffic police patrolling a Mexican highway, killing eight officers in the latest strike against security forces. More than 2,000 police officers have been killed due to drug prohibition violence since Calderon took office.
Publication/Source: 
Reuters
URL: 
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE69A4Y620101011

Mayor-Elect Gunned Down in Southern Mexico

Localização: 
Martires de Tacubaya, OAX
Mexico
The mayor-elect of Martires de Tacubaya, a city near the border with Guerrero in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, was gunned down by hitmen working for drug traffickers. Eleven mayors have been murdered in Mexico this year, and officials say most of the killings are part of the drug prohibition violence that has claimed more than 28,000 lives nationwide since late 2006. The two suspects arrested in the case told investigators they were paid $6,000 to kill the mayor and one of his assistants.
Publication/Source: 
Latin America Herald Tribune (Venezuela)
URL: 
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=371100&CategoryId=14091

Drug Prohibition Violence Hangs Over Mexican Mayors

Localização: 
Mexico
At least 11 mayors have been killed this year across Mexico, as a spooky sense of permanent siege takes hold in the many communities where rival drug trafficking organizations fight for control of local drug sales, marijuana and poppy fields, methamphetamine labs and billion-dollar smuggling routes to the United States.
Publication/Source: 
The Seattle Times (WA)
URL: 
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013113288_mexmayors10.html

Search for Missing Tourist Thwarted by Drug Prohibition Gangs

Localização: 
Mexico
A search for a missing American tourist presumably shot and killed by Mexican pirates on a border lake has been thwarted by threats of an ambush from drug prohibition gangs.
Publication/Source: 
The Associated Press

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