Article: Police bear increasingly heavy burden of society’s problems

By ADAM MCGILL | December 30, 2018 at 10:00 am

On Dec. 26 in Newman, California, police Cpl. Ronil Singh, 33, was shot and killed after making a traffic stop. From 1992 until Jan. 9, 2005, when Ceres police Sgt. Howard Stevenson was gunned down, I had never personally known a single officer killed in the line of duty. Officers were killed during this period, but not in my circle.

Now, in just the past 13 years, the number of officers I’ve known killed on duty has grown to 11.

The number of U.S. police officers killed in the line of duty is on the rise. So far this year, officer deaths have already increased 12 percent over 2017 numbers, and it’s not just officers being murdered. Peace officers are taking their own lives at an alarming rate, more often than being killed by other means.

Oddly, this escalation of peace officer deaths is occurring as crime is trending downward, but calls to police are trending upward.

What’s changed in policing that may be contributing to more officers being killed?

Continue reading here: https://www.marinij.com/2018/12/30/marin-voice-police-bear-increasingly-heavy-burden-of-societys-problems/