The number of law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty decreased significantly in 2023, but firearms-related fatalities, while down, were the leading cause of death. According to the 2023 End-of-Year Preliminary Law Enforcement Officers Fatalities Report released by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in January, there was a 39% decrease in overall officer deaths compared to the previous year.
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NLEOMF data shows that 136 federal, state, county, municipal, military, tribal and campus officers died in the line of duty in 2023, compared to the 224 officers who died in the line of duty in 2022. Firearms-related fatalities claimed the lives of 47 officers in 2023, which represents a 25% decrease from the 63 officers killed by gunfire in 2022, but was the leading cause of death.
There is no such thing as ‘good news’ when reporting even a single officer being killed in the line-of-duty,” National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund CEO Bill Alexander said in a statement. “Yet we are encouraged to see fewer overall officer deaths across all major categories in 2023. Using and reporting on this data allows us to highlight the continuing dangers faced by our law enforcement professionals, particularly the number of officers who are shot and killed each year.”
Of the 47 officers who were shot and killed, nine were attempting to make an arrest; seven were handling domestic disputes; six were investigating suspicious circumstances/persons; five were ambushed, five were killed making or attempting to make traffic stops, five were killed responding to a robbery/burglary call, and two were killed handling disturbance calls. Two officers each were shot while serving warrants and two were shot during tactical situations. One was inadvertently or mistakenly shot during training, one was shot intervening in a crime in progress off duty, and the circumstances of the final two fatalities were not clearly defined.
Handguns continue to be the leading type of firearm used in fatal shootings of law enforcement officers. In 2023, 25 officers were killed with a handgun. Of the 22 additional officer firearms-related fatalities: 13 were killed with a rifle; one was killed by an officer’s weapon; and two were killed by a shotgun. The type of firearm used in the remaining six fatalities is still under investigation or was still unknown at the time the report was released.
Of the 47 firearms-related fatalities in 2023, eight officers died in July, followed by six in April, five each in May and June, and four in February. Three each occurred in January, March, August, October and December. Two each occurred in September and November.
Traffic-related fatalities decreased 27% with 37 deaths in 2023, compared to 51 deaths in 2022. The 27 fatal crashes in 2023 (automobile/motorcycle) represents a decrease of 25% compared to the 36 fatal crashes in 2022. “Struckby” fatalities, defined as an officer struck outside of their patrol vehicle, dropped 33% from 15 in 2022 to 10 in 2023 Of the 37 traffic-related deaths: 23 were automobile crashes; and four were motorcycle crashes.
The remaining 10 officers were killed in struck-by incidents, where an officer was hit by a vehicle while outside of his or her patrol vehicle. Many of these fatal struck-by crashes occurred while officers were investigating crashes or assisting motorists on the side of the road. Compared to the 15 struck-by fatalities in 2022, 2023 represents a 33% decrease. Four of the struck-by fatalities involved an officer deploying a tire deflation device. Compared to the average number of traffic-related fatalities per decade, 2023 reverses a trend in prior years with lower deaths compared to the past 10-year average (2010-2019). In the prior decade, 53 officers were killed on average each year.
The single largest category of officer fatalities in this report, which combines a number of unrelated subcategories, is the ‘Other’ category. This category contains a wide variety of health-related deaths such as heart attacks, strokes, lingering health effects from the September 11 attacks, and other line-of-duty fatalities. The 52 officers who died in 2023 compared to 110 who died in 2022 represents a 53% overall decrease in ‘Other’ category. In 2022, the largest sub-section of the ‘Other’ category, and the overall leading cause of death in 2022, was COVID-19-related fatalities. Falling from 74 such deaths in 2022, only 5 officers succumbed to complications from COVID-19 in 2023.
Forty-seven additional officers in this category died of other causes not related to COVID-19 during 2023. This compares to 36 similar fatalities last year, representing a 31% increase. Thirty-five officers succumbed to either job-related illness or a sudden medical event. The health-related illnesses include those involved in the recovery efforts following the terrorist attacks on September 11. The medical events generally involve heart attacks and strokes suffered as a result of actions taken while on duty. Three officers fell to their death. Two were killed in aircraft crashes. The remaining officers died as a result of one each: beaten to death, being struck by a falling object, drowning, assisting during a fire incident, stabbed to death, strangled to death, and struck by a train.
New York experienced the largest number of law enforcement fatalities of all U.S. states in 2023, with 13 LODDs; Texas had the second highest number with 11 officer deaths; Louisiana had the third highest number with eight officer deaths; California had the fourth highest number with seven officer deaths; Indiana, and Tennessee had the fifth highest number with six officer deaths each; in addition, seven federal officers, three officers serving U.S. Territories, one military officer, and one tribal officer died in 2023. Ten states did not lose an officer in 2023.
There were 126 male officers killed in the line of duty, and 10 female officers. The average age of the fallen officers is 45, with an average of 15 years of service.
The statistics released in the annual report are based on preliminary data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and may not represent a final or complete list of individual officers who will be added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in 2024. There are currently 23,785 names of officers killed in the line of duty inscribed on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C., dating back to the first known death in 1786. The deadliest year on record for law enforcement was 2021, when 586 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. The NLEOMF anticipates adding at least 151 names to the walls in the Spring of 2024, representing the current and historical deaths which have been approved as LODDs.
Read the NLEOMF's full 2023 LODD report: officer.com/53083351
Paul Peluso | Editor
Paul Peluso is the Managing Editor of OFFICER Magazine and has been with the Officer Media Group since 2006. He began as an Associate Editor, writing and editing content for Officer.com. Previously, Paul worked as a reporter for several newspapers in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD.
