The police as victims: the role of guns in the murder of police.

Abstract

Lester (1984) has shown that police officers are murdered at a higher rate in cities where the general murder rate is higher (but not where other crime rates are higher) and where a higher percentage of suicides and homicides use guns. The present smdy sought to explore the relationship between the use of guns in robbery and assault and the rates with which police officers are murdered. Data were available for the 37 largest cities in the USA. The rates at which police officers were murdered in each cirp were calculated for 1970 to 1978 from data supplied by Mr. Paul Zolbe (Chief, Uniform Crime Reports, FBI). These rates were correlated with the proportion of suicides and homicides committed by gun in each city in 1973-1974,' the percenrage oE robberies and aggravated assaults committed in each city by gun in 1974 (from data supplied by Mr. Paul Zolbe), and the rates of robbery with gun, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft from the Uniform Crime Reports for 1974 (FBI, 1975). The rate with which police officers were murdered in the 37 cities was related to the murder rate in the cities (Pearson r = 0.41, two-tailed p < 0.02), the manslaughter rate (r = 0.47, fi < 0.01), the rate of murder by gun (r = 0.51, fi < 0.01), the rate of aggravated assault by gun (r = 0.39, p < 0.02), the percentage of suicides by gun (r = 0.45, p < 0.01), the percentage of homicides by gun (r = 0.40, P < 0.02), the percentage of robberies by gun (r = 0.41, fi < 0.02), and the percentage of aggravated assaults by gun (r = 0.29, p < 0.10). The rate with which police officers were murdered in the 37 cities was not related to the rape rate (r = 0.08), the robbery rate (r = 0.03), the aggravated assault rate (r = 0.17), the burglary rate (r = 0.14), the larceny rate (r = -0.04), the motor vehicle theft rate (r = - 0.16), or the rate of robbery by gun (r = 0.22). The results from this study indicate that police officers are murdered at a higher rate in cities where a greater proportion of suicides, homicides, robberies, and aggravated assaults involve guns, suggesting that the increased availability and use of guns by criminals in a community may reflect, and perhaps cause, a higher likelihood of lethal violence toward police in that community.