Florida Leads Nation in Line of Duty Deaths

We're only 76 days into 2011 and already Florida has lost 10 law enforcement officers in the line of duty. That breaks down to roughly one per week and is double that of New York, the next closest state! Additionally, in the first three months of 2011 Florida has already surpassed its total line of duty deaths for all of 2010.

Officer David Crawford

There is no single explanation as to why. However, there is one contributing factor hitting Florida especially hard this year that has affected the country over the past few years: the brazenness of criminals and their complete disregard for human life is increasing.

Everyone reading this article is surely familiar with the Miami-Dade shooting and the first St. Petersburg shooting of 2011. These two incidents occurred just four days apart and claimed the lives of four police officers. In both cases, the officers were fatally shot by suspects who had complete contempt for law enforcement and society. And both shootings occurred during the service of fugitive arrest warrants.

If this trend continues, at year's end 40 of Florida's law enforcement officers will have been killed in the line of duty with 24 slain by gunfire. We cannot let this happen in Florida.

We cannot let this happen anywhere.

In memory of our fellow officers in Florida who made the ultimate sacrifice in 2011:

Police Officer Rogerio Morales	Davie Police Department, FL	2011-01-13
Detective Amanda Haworth	Miami-Dade Police Department, FL	2011-01-20
Detective Roger Castillo	Miami-Dade Police Department, FL	2011-01-20
Sergeant Tom Baitinger	St. Petersburg Police Department, FL	2011-01-24
Police Officer Jeffrey Yaslowitz	St. Petersburg Police Department, FL	2011-01-24
Correctional Officer Colonel Greg Malloy	Florida Department of Corrections, FL	2011-02-02
Captain John I. (Jay) McDonough	Volusia County Beach Patrol, FL	2011-02-16
Sergeant Adam Rosenthal	Delray Beach Police Department, FL	2011-02-17
Police Officer David S. Crawford	St. Petersburg Police Department, FL	2011-02-21
Deputy Sheriff Sebastian Diana	Orange County Sheriff's Office, FL	2011-03-12

Violent Deaths of Officers on the Rise in 2011

This chart may be republished with proper citing. Click chart to enlarge.

The good news first: Overall, line of duty deaths are down by 12% this year compared to the same date last year. As of February 25, 2011, America has lost 30 law enforcement officers in the line of duty (compared to 34 on February 25, 2010).

The bad news: We've seen nearly a complete reversal on recent trends which held that auto-related incidents are the leading cause of fatalities.

This time last year we had suffered only 9 deaths by gunfire and 16 in auto-related incidents. This year it is almost a mirror image: 16 felonious deaths (15 gunfire and 1 assault) and 9 auto-related incidents.

Over the past decade as auto-related incidents overtook shootings as the leading cause of fatalities there has been a tremendous amount of attention given to safer driving initiatives - like the Below 100 initiative - both for law enforcement officers and the general public. Case in point, most states now have "Move Over" laws that are being heavily enforced on our highways. Just as important, FTOs, academy instructors, and patrol sergeants are changing the traditional law enforcement culture of not wearing seat belts and driving too fast to calls. These simple awareness campaigns seem to be doing their part this year in reducing the number of traffic related deaths.

Without impacting the great headway we've made this year in reducing auto-related deaths, all officers need to maintain that heightened level of awareness that criminals today are more brazen and showing less regard for human life - their own and the officers.

Reducing both traffic-related deaths AND gunfire deaths is the only way we'll be able to truly drop line of duty deaths "Below 100."

Volunteers Needed During Police Week

Our good friends at Concerns of Police Survivors are looking for volunteers at the survivor's hotel during Police Week. This is an excellent chance to help survivors during one of the most important weeks of the year. I've done this each year for the past 15 or so years, and I can tell you from experience it's the week I look forward to the most each year. You will not regret helping out and meeting the survivors and other officers who are volunteering!!!

Any and all help is appreciated, even if it's only for an hour or two. If you can help, please contact Cathy Hill at [email protected]

All of the help is needed at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center (the survivor's host hotel). The hotel is a 15 minute drive from downtown DC in Alexandria, Virginia. Here's a quick breakdown of what is needed when:

May 12th, 8:30 am - whenever work if finished

• Unload supplies from truck
• Prepare tote bags for survivors (to be handed out at registration)
• Display and info table setup

May 13th

• 8 am - 5 pm: Staff registration tables (provide name tags, tote bags, info, etc. to survivors)
• 5 pm - 8 pm: Assist families to Candlelight Vigil (for families that don't have escort officers)

May 14th

• 8 am - 5 pm: Staff information tables
• 8 am - 5 pm: Assist survivors to conference sessions
• Evening: Staff games and concessions at the Sawyer Circus (Suzie Sawyer's retirement part!!!)

May 15th

• Morning: Assist survivors at the host hotel

May 16th

• 8 am - 5 pm: Staff information tables
• 8 am - 5 pm: Assist survivors to conference sessions
• Afternoon: Teardown of conference space, info tables, etc.
• Afternoon: Setup for Hoedown at the Hilton (the survivor picnic that officially ends Police Week)

May 17th

• Morning: Reload the truck!!!