It’s been a lethal year for police. But here’s what’s behind the numbers

The deadly ambushes of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., this month raised fears of a wave of violence against law enforcement, with subsequent police slayings in Kansas City, Kan., and, late Thursday night, in San Diego heightening the anxiety.

The number of police officers slain in the line of duty this year is up 70% over this time last year.

But that stark increase is in part due to last year being one of the safest for officers in decades, especially the first half of it.

Year to year, the numbers of officers intentionally killed swing widely.

In 2011, 72 officers were murdered. Two years later, 27 were – the fewest in 35 years. So when 48 died at the hands of assailants in 2014, the increase was a startling 89%.

That cycle is repeating now.

Twenty officers were killed by gunfire or intentional run down with a vehicle by July 29 of last year, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks officer deaths. (The FBI has not yet released data breaking down killings by month in 2015.)

This year, 34 officers have been slain. If the killings continued at the same pace, the total figure at the end of the year would be 59, or 44% higher than last year, but still well below 2011.

From 1990 to 2014, an average of 64 officers was intentionally killed every year, according to the FBI.

Violence against police has largely been falling since a peak in 1973, when 134 officers were slain. From 2005 to 2014, an average of 51 cops was murdered every year.

And there were more cops to attack, so the level of risk for any individual officer was even lower.

The number of state and local sworn officers was 551,764 in 1994, when 76 were murdered — or one out of every 7,260 cops — according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In 2012, the number of cops nationwide had risen to 687,657. Of those, 48 were slain (in addition to one federal officer). That was one out of 14,326 cops.

Between 2005 and 2014, the most recent 10-year period the FBI has provided data for, the highest number of slain officers, 95, have died during arrests. The next most lethal situations for police were:

♦ Traffic stops (93 officers dead)

♦ Investigating suspicious persons (68 dead)

♦ Responding to disturbance calls (62 dead, including 23 during calls for domestic disputes)

♦ Unprovoked attacks (57 dead)

♦ Tactical situations such as dealing with a barricaded suspect (49 dead)

♦ Ambushes (36 dead)

What makes 2016 stand out are the ambushes, which have already claimed nine officers’ lives, including those in Baton Rouge and Dallas, and an officer shot behind a municipal building in Danville, Ohio, on Jan. 17.

joe.mozingo@latimes.com