We live in a culture that makes being a police officer a thankless job. President Obama loves getting his face on television to bemoan anything negative involving law enforcement. He rarely praises cops for performing heroic acts and worse yet, he barely acknowledges them when they are victims of violence.
Thankfully, one state stepped up and prioritized protecting their cops:
It’s a first for the so-called Blue Lives Matter movement: The Louisiana Legislature has passed a bill that expands hate-crime laws to include protections for police and other first responders.
Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who comes from a family of sheriffs, is expected to sign the bill into law.
“The legislation allows Louisiana prosecutors to seek stiffer penalties against people convicted of intentionally targeting police officers, firefighters or emergency medical crews,” NPR’s Debbie Elliott reports.
Debbie notes that the measure passed easily in both the state House and Senate.
This is great news! See what officers have to say about the bill here:
Check out the statistics below — they demonstrate that cops aren’t “trigger happy” as some people make them out to be and the number of cops killed in the line of duty has decreased in recent years. Unfortunately, officers are still assaulted and injured on the job:
- According to the FBI, an estimated 11,302,102 people were arrested in 2013.
- During those arrests 49,851 Officers were assaulted while performing their duties, which averages 9.3 assaults per 100 officers.
- There are approximately 400 deaths attributed to police each year, many of whom resisted arrest or attacked the police.That’s a death during 0.0035 of all arrests. Even if you are overly cautious and put the number around 1,000 per year, that’s still a death during 0.0088 of all arrests, again the majority of whom were killed after resisting arrest.
- Around 99.99% of arrests result in no deadly force.
It’s simple. Cops are much more likely to be hurt by perpetrators. Louisiana has taken an important step to protect its law enforcement officers. We need more states to do the same!
Cops deserve this kind of protection as they put their lives at risk every day to protect and serve — show your support by sharing this story.
H/T: NPR
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