Extending Research on the “War on Cops”: The Effects of Ferguson on Nonfatal Assaults Against U.S. Police Officers

Abstract

This study tests whether violence directed toward American law enforcement has increased in the wake of events in Ferguson, Missouri, in summer 2014. Using monthly data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) reports (2010–2016), we carried out time-series analyses to examine trends in nonfatal assaults on police officers in a sample of 4,921 agencies. Neither injurious nor noninjurious assaults on officers increased following Michael Brown’s death in August 2014. The findings are robust across a variety of model specifications and estimation techniques, providing little evidence of a “War on Cops” through 2016. The study adds empirical rigor to an ongoing national debate based largely on speculation/anecdotes. The impact and potential consequences of the current climate for officers’ perceptions of safety/risk are discussed.

Gun victimization in the line of duty

“…Scholars have noted for some time, however, that analyses focused on felonious line-of-duty deaths systematically underestimate the full scope of danger that officers face by excluding nonfatal assaults (see Brandl, 1996). Accordingly, other research has analyzed nonfatal assaults, specifically (Shjarback & Maguire, 2019;Tiesman et al, 2018), both fatal and nonfatal assaults (Crifasi, Pollack, & Webster, 2016;Fridell, Faggiani, Taylor, Brito, & Kubu, 2009), or some combination of fatal assaults, nonfatal assaults, and line-of-duty accidents (Brandl, 1996;White et al, 2019). These related streams of research provide invaluable insight but, of course, also come with important limitations.…”

“…For example, Shjarback and Maguire's (2019) time-series analysis of LEOKA data to investigate trends in violence directed at police, although able to provide cautious estimates of national-level trends in nonfatal assaults, did not analytically distinguish an injury caused by a fist or a bullet. Tiesman et al (2018)) analysis of injurious assaults treated in U.S. emergency rooms and analyses employing NIBRS data had the same limitation (Bierie, 2017;Willits, 2014).…”

“…Proponents of this hypothesized war posit that the contemporary political climate has resulted in widespread distrust and even disdain of police on the part of public officials, academics, and the news media; in turn, the public has become increasingly “anti‐police” and emboldened to question, resist, and violently attack police officers on U.S. streets (Mac Donald, 2016). Despite widespread concern among police administrators (Nix, Wolfe, & Campbell, 2018), however, empirical research on the most dire implication of a war on cops—violence against police—finds no significant increases in fatal or nonfatal violence against police in recent years (Maguire, Nix, & Campbell, 2017; Shjarback & Maguire, 2019). Nonetheless, the issue of violence against police remains highly salient to U.S. politics and policy, including the rise of the Blue Lives Matter movement and the growth in laws seeking enhanced penalties for killing police officers (Craven, 2017).…”

“…Bierie, 2017; Bierie, Detar, & Craun, 2016), including nonfatal firearm assaults that, even though they do not result in a line‐of‐duty death, represent cases of deadly force directed at police. Second, analyses that attend to all assaults on police officers better capture less‐than‐lethal violence (e.g., punches and kicks) but do not differentiate such cases from especially lethal threats like firearm assaults (Shjarback & Maguire, 2019; Tiesman, Gwilliam, Konda, Rojek, & Marsh, 2018; cf. Bierie et al., 2016).…”

“…Bierie et al., 2016). Third, data sources that rely on voluntary reporting by police (e.g., LEOKA and NIBRS) are limited by a lack of consistent reporting by law enforcement agencies and marked lag times in the release of said data, frustrating timely, confident estimates of a pressing public safety and policy issue (Kuhns, Dolliver, Bent, & Maguire, 2016, p. 6; Nix, Richards, Pinchevsky, & Wright, 2019, p. 6; Shjarback & Maguire, 2019).…”