'Disturbing And Demoralizing': Attacks On Police Higher Than Ever, Report Says

The number of officers shot in the line of duty is higher than ever, according to a new report from the Fraternal Order of Police. The local FOP chapter says they’re seeing that same trend right here in Oklahoma. 

"If law enforcement is not safe, then our society is not safe," Mark Nelson, president of the Oklahoma City Fraternal Order of Police said.  

The national report shows 378 officers shot in the line of duty in 2023. 

"This is a trend that has been continuing the last four or five years and it's not decreasing," Nelson said. "A very, very disturbing and demoralizing year for law enforcement.”

According to the FOP, last year's number is a 14 percent jump from 2022. 

He says the problem goes beyond the dangerous nature of police work.

"Officers know that they stand ready to give their life if need be," Nelson said, explaining that the main concern is the rise in ambush-style attacks. "Officers who are sitting in their car, doing nothing but trying to help someone, and they are ambushed.”

Much like an October 2023 incident involving an Oklahoma City Police officer. 

"Thankfully he was barely grazed with a round,” Nelson said. “But we caught the individual who just shot at the officer while he was sitting in his car."  

The FOP report shows there were 115 attacks like this one in 2023 and from those ambushes 138 officers were shot, and 20 died. 

“That's what they are, they are attacks,” Nelson said. “And not just attacks on our law enforcement but attacks on our communities and our cities."  

He said reversing these trends will start with accountability. 

"Rarely is someone who is convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer on their first run in with the law or breaking the law," Nelson said. "We all have to work together to keep the people who are perpetrating those crimes behind bars where they belong."  

Nelson said the FOP wants to shine a spotlight on this in 2024 and they encourage officials to be less lenient on releasing violent criminals from prison.