Fatal ambushes on law enforcement officers rising
On Oct. 27, the U.S. Department of Justice Office
of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)
released its report on ambushes and violence against
law enforcement officers. The study examined
ambushes, defined as planned surprise attacks, of
officers between 1990 and 2013 and concluded that
ambush attacks against officers remain a threat to
officer safety. The number of attacks per year has held steady at
about 200 since a decline in the early 1990s, but the proportion of
fatal attacks on officers by ambush is on the rise.
The report investigated methods for preventing and effectively
responding to ambushes of officers and examined the environmental factors prevalent in ambush situations. It found that 62
percent of ambushes were on officers working in a single-officer
patrol vehicle and 24 percent on two-person patrols.
NAPO believes officers in single-officer vehicles are targeted
because patrolling alone makes for easier attacks, not just because
there are more single-officer patrol units than multiple-officer
patrols units. NAPO also believes it’s incumbent upon agencies to
pursue as many two-person units as possible. NAPO continues to
call on the COPS Office to prioritize its hiring grants for agencies
that institute a policy of two-person units for all patrol shifts and
patrol assignments.
NAPO calls for Tarantino boycott
Days after NYPD Officer Randolph Holder was killed in the line
of duty, film director Quentin Tarantino referred to police as “murderers” during an anti-police rally in New York City. As a highprofile figure, Tarantino’s language is irresponsible, particularly at
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a time when the nation is seeing increasing threats to
officers. Anti-police rhetoric like Tarantino’s
threatens the safety of police and citizens.
NAPO supports the call of the New York City PBA
and the Los Angeles Police Protective League to boycott Tarantino’s films and asks officers to stop
working special assignments or off-duty jobs, such as
providing security, traffic control or technical advice for any of
Tarantino’s projects to send a loud message that hateful rhetoric
against law enforcement officers is unacceptable.
NAPO joins Homeland Security call on release of foreignborn prisoners
NAPO participated in a Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) Office for State and Local Law Enforcement conference call
regarding the Bureau of Prisons’ transfer of foreign-born individuals to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
(ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division.
This prisoner release is being conducted pursuant to the U.S.
Sentencing Commission’s 2014 guidelines, which grant sentencing
reductions for certain drug trafficking offens