Police Vs. Civilian Deaths for 2016

So I briefly touched upon this already in a prior entry written back in early December, which can be read: HERE. Now having taken all of 2016 into perspective, I wanted to expand on the concept of police deaths some more. I often reference the site Killed By Police, a volunteer-run database which tracks every citizen death by cops in America and makes that info. available, segmented by year. Something the U.S. govt. ought to be doing, but doesn't. According to KBP, 1153 citizens have died at the hands of cops in 2016. Obviously, most of these killings did not make the news cycle. It's very difficult to keep up with the ones that have.   

Another site worth paying attention to is the Officer Down Memorial page, a belly-aching police-worship site which tracks all cop deaths - whether they've died on-duty or otherwise. According to the ODMP, a total of 140 "cops" died in 2016. Now the reason cops is in "" is because not all 140 of these recorded deaths were of humans. In fact, 34 of those "police" deaths were K9s. Yes, ODMP counts dogs as well. Of the 34 police dog deaths, the highest number (12) died from... heat exhaustion. Meaning that these dogs were most likely left in patrol cars and forgotten about... by their police handlers. In other words - FELLOW COPS. The most recently recorded cop dog death was of K9 Lina (Madison County Sheriff's office, Arkansas), who died on September 9th 2016. Lina succumbed to heat exhaustion after her pig handler left her locked in a patrol car over night. Other K9 deaths are rounded out by various causes, but only 11 (ten by gunfire, one by stabbing) were attributive to wanton criminal acts. Of the two "assault" deaths recorded, one was actually from a suspect accidentally falling on the dog. The other might have been kicked or injured in a fall. Admittedly, ODMP K9 appears to be a newer feature, with only 2016 deaths having been recorded. Curiously, the site does not currently include mounted patrol horses, including a September 26th 2016 death, when a Denver cop tied his horse up and abandoned it. 

And of the 106 human police deaths recorded last year, only 63 of them were due to gunfire by criminal suspects. Remaining deaths are rounded out by various causes, including vehicular accidents, drownings, heart attacks, accidental gunfire, 9/11 related illness, etc. Curiously, no suicides are mentioned. That's real interesting because statistical evidence suggests that lots of cops commit suicide every year. In fact, according to site Police Suicide Study, cops who off themselves far out-pace cops killed by suspects year by year. According to Officer.com, 108 cops killed themselves in 2016. Not only does that number exceed all cop deaths by suspect gunfire (63), it exceeds all TOTAL police deaths (106) in 2016! Unless you include K9s. No word yet on K9 suicides - I'm sure someone is looking into that, though. 

Police suicides seem to be far more difficult to track than deaths by other means, but there are reasons for that. Police departments are very reluctant to track and release suicide data amongst its ranks because, let's be honest - suicides don't bring in the federal funds, military hardware, or public sympathy nearly as much as a cop fallen by a violent evil criminal. Again, suicides far out-pace murder by suspects year after year. Cops are already dangerously unhinged. Many are out-right psychotic and it's a damned wonder how many cops pass their psychological exams at all. Many cops are military vets and that comes with its own bag of issues. In fact, it seems clear that PTSD exceeds firearms as a leading cause of police deaths. If the general public had a full appreciation of these facts, then it would have to be concluded that cops are far more a danger to themselves than so-called "criminals"! Perhaps police regimes should be receiving huge increases in the form of mental health services. But instead, they get body armor and war weapons. Of course, any time a cop is gunned down (as rare as that is), it makes headlines and waves of indignation follow, along with pathetic howls of "blue lives matter". Yet, when was the last time you saw a headlining report of a cop committing suicide? Doesn't quite fit the narrative, does it?   

One last thing worth noting. Of all 2016 recorded "police" deaths, many were "correctional" officers. So of that 140 total, a lot of them were prison guards, as well as dogs. So, in many of these cases, we're not even talking about actual COPS. While KBP's numbers come from hard, researched data, ODMP's numbers are fluffed with animals and people who're just a little too dumb to be real cops. 140 vs. 1153... who's really in danger here? Cops or civilians?