{"id":47772,"date":"2019-02-01T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/?p=47772"},"modified":"2024-10-11T09:15:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T13:15:09","slug":"ambushes-and-unprovoked-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/ambushes-and-unprovoked-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambushes and Unprovoked Attacks: New FBI Study Examines Assaults on Law Enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<table style=\"background-color: #0071ce;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"623\">\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><strong>In July 2017, an assailant approached an officer sitting in her patrol vehicle with her partner. The assailant fired one round into the side of the officer\u2019s head, killing her.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><strong>In October 2017, an officer responded to a \u201cshots-fired\u201d call at a convenience store. A man approached the officer and guided him into the store. Once inside, the \u201cconcerned citizen\u201d turned upon the officer, shooting and killing him.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><strong>In December 2017, an officer approached a residence to serve a warrant. The officer was within 10 feet of the house when a man inside fired upon the officer, striking him four times and killing him.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0071ce;\"><strong>Officers being attacked without warning has become more frequent, and data from the FBI\u2019s Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program <span style=\"color: #0071ce;\">confirm<\/span> a steady increase in these assaults for the past several years.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The most recent 30 years of data show the total number of officers feloniously killed declined consecutively for each 10-year time period between 1987 and 2016. However, the percentage of officers whose deaths involved ambushes or unprovoked attacks steadily increased during the same 30 years (see Figure 1).<sup>1<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-47775 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Figure-1-Ambush-attacks-1024x588.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Figure-1-Ambush-attacks-1024x588.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Figure-1-Ambush-attacks-300x172.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Figure-1-Ambush-attacks-768x441.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Figure-1-Ambush-attacks.jpg 1347w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The LEOKA Program launched a thorough examination of ambushes and unprovoked attacks in an effort to gain insight into the phenomena and to provide information to enhance training programs for law enforcement officers. After several years of extensive research, the LEOKA Program will release a special study titled\u00a0Ambushes and Unprovoked Attacks: Assaults on Our Nation\u2019s Law Enforcement Officers. The study, which will be available to all law enforcement agencies and organizations, will give readers a rare view of the circumstances surrounding ambushes and unprovoked attacks from the perspectives of both the officers and the offenders.<\/p>\n<p>For the study, the LEOKA Program partnered with Department of Counseling, Rehabilitation Counseling, and Counseling Psychology at the West Virginia University\u2019s College of Education and Human Services. The study team included Department Chair Dr. Jeffrey Daniels, a team of counseling psychology doctoral candidates, and LEOKA Program staff.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In this line, you just never know when it\u2019s going to hit the fan. Just stay on your toes, and, if you do encounter some situation like that, just stay in the game.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In order to paint a complete picture of ambushes and unprovoked attacks, the team interviewed offenders to present their firsthand perspectives of the attacks. The research focused on the mind-set and perceptions of both the officers attacked and the offenders who carried out the attacks. Researchers wanted to identify why the incidents might have occurred and how the participants reacted to the situation.<\/p>\n<p>In total, 40 cases of ambushes and unprovoked attacks were studied. After reviewing records and accounts of the incidents, the team conducted standardized, in-depth interviews of 33 law enforcement officers and 30 offenders. In cases where the victim officer did not survive, the team interviewed one or more witness officers. The offenders selected for the study were serving their sentences in prisons throughout the United States with no ongoing appeals or other legal challenges. Using techniques to mitigate individual bias or expectation, the team analyzed transcripts of the interviews to identify notable concepts and recurring themes.<\/p>\n<p>It is important to note the officers and offenders in this study were not a random sample of participants. Rather, the sample was drawn from cases in which a victim, witness officer, or an offender survived and agreed to be interviewed. (Also, the offender had to have been convicted of the ambush or unprovoked attack.) Although there were some common characteristics among the offenders discussed in the study, researchers were unable to develop a profile of the \u201ctypical\u201d person who is likely to assault an officer.<\/p>\n<p>The study is broken into chapters that address major subjects such as officers, offenders, areas of concern for law enforcement, case studies, and narratives of the cases.<\/p>\n<p>The following sections demonstrate just a few types of the data, anecdotal information, or insights reported in the document.<sup>2<\/sup><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #0071ce;\"><strong>Officers<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4>Officer Demographics<\/h4>\n<p>An analysis of the officers who were victims of ambushes or unprovoked attacks provided the following average demographics:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"color: #da8a67;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings;\">n<\/span>\u00a0<\/span> The average age of victim officers was just over 36 years old.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings; color: #da8a67;\">n<\/span>\u00a0 Sixty-three percent (63.3%) of officers had education beyond high school, including two officers with master\u2019s degrees.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings; color: #da8a67;\">n<\/span>\u00a0 At the time of the ambushes and unprovoked attacks, the officers\u2019 years of experience ranged from just under 4 months to 32 years, with an average of 11.5 years of service.<\/p>\n<h4>Topic of Interest<\/h4>\n<p>One of the common themes expressed by officers during their interviews was the need for mental preparation in order to navigate ambush and unprovoked attack situations. The study includes examples from these incidents, as well as officers\u2019 thoughts on the topics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mental Preparation Example 1:<\/strong>\u00a0Two officers pursued a suspect on foot into his house. While the witness officer was attempting to contain the offender\u2019s relative, the offender shot and killed the other officer in an adjacent room. During the interview, the witness officer provided his perspective on how the ambush has altered his approach to law enforcement. He stated, \u201cIn your ordinary and everyday training, every once in a while, you have to think of what could go bad, what could be the worst, and train like that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mental Preparation Example 2:<\/strong>\u00a0The victim and witness officers came as backup to a shots-fired call at an apartment complex. The officers intended to move the crowd back, but they came under fire as they were getting out of their cruiser. Reflecting on mental preparation, the witness officer stated,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Stay in the game, you know. A lot of people get complacent after a while. In this line, you just never know when it\u2019s going to hit the fan. Just stay on your toes, and, if you do encounter some situation like that, just stay in the game.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The notions these witness officers provide of being mentally prepared, avoiding complacency, and staying engaged were reflected by other officers in the study, as well.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #0071ce;\"><strong>Offenders<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4>Offender Demographic Sample<\/h4>\n<p>The 30 offenders interviewed provided the following demographic sample:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings; color: #da8a67;\">n<\/span>\u00a0 The average age of the offender when the assault occurred was 28 years old, with ages ranging from 16 to 55 years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings; color: #da8a67;\">n<\/span>\u00a0 Fifty percent (50%) reported growing up with a father present, and just under half (46.6 percent) stated their fathers were either mostly absent or had never lived with them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings; color: #da8a67;\">n<\/span>\u00a0 One-third of the offenders interviewed (33.3%) reported being involved in confrontations with law enforcement officers before being involved in the incidents in this study.<\/p>\n<h4>Topic of Interest<\/h4>\n<p>The offender chapter of the study includes data on motives and micro-motives, which are defined as contributing factors that played a role in the offenders\u2019 decisions to attack the officers. One of the micro-motives often discussed by offenders was having a negative background (as a minor). The transcripts of the interviews with offenders demonstrate that many of them lived lives of stress and strain, often coming from unstable homes, engaging in criminal activities early in life, and using and abusing alcohol or drugs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Negative Background Example:<\/strong>\u00a0The offender grew up in an impoverished environment. His father had previously been arrested for a DUI and deported to his home country. Before the unprovoked attack, his father, who was back in the United States [illegally], was again pulled over for drunk driving. He was stopped by police in front of the offender\u2019s home. After his father\u2019s arrest, the offender went into their house and came out the back door with a rifle. The offender opened fire [on the backup officer in her patrol vehicle], emptying his 30-round magazine. Despite taking six hits, the officer survived. When describing his childhood and the difficulties of his youth, this offender stated:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>[I tried] to look for something, happiness, you know? Trying to help someone out, you know, when they\u2019re down. Things like that. That\u2019s what I was looking for, you know, a handout. I never got one. And the people that would give them to me, they were in the same situation I was.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Another micro-motive discussed by the same offender was his mental state and affective reactions. The offender described how he was feeling at the time he initiated the attack on the officer. During his interview for the study, he described \u201csnapping\u201d because of a mixture of several intense emotions:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>I snapped. I couldn\u2019t take it anymore. It was just too much stress, too much depression, anger, all that, you know. Every single downfall in my life came at that moment, you know? The whole weight of it came down on me.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #0071ce;\"><strong>Law Enforcement Concerns<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>During the interviews, officers identified specific concerns they faced during ambushes and unprovoked attacks, along with anything that may have helped them during the incident.<\/p>\n<p>One of the major concerns was obvious: not being able to see the offender or not knowing the direction from which the attack was coming. One offender attacked an officer from behind and attempted to get the officer\u2019s weapon. When the officer was asked what he would have done differently, he replied,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>I may have picked a little different spot. Where I was standing kind of left a part of my back and, you know, and part of my right-hand side, my gun side, open. If I\u2019d been able to do it again, or I would have thought a little differently, I may have picked the other end because there [are] nice big walls that you can stand against and no one can get behind you or alongside of you\u2014you would see them coming.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #0071ce;\"><strong>Helpful Training<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Several officers in the study discussed prior training that proved advantageous during the ambushes or unprovoked attacks they experienced. One such topic was training on communication, as described by the same officer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Training Example:<\/strong>\u00a0[The] officer was working a security post at a local grocery store when a larger, stronger offender snuck up behind the officer and snatched his service weapon from his holster. While struggling with the subject for control of his weapon, the officer remembered the orange emergency button on his police radio and activated it. Assistance arrived quickly, and the officer was able to survive and recover his service weapon. The officer recalled that, although his agency only briefly covered the use of the emergency\u00a0call button, it was this resource that quickly brought the backup officers who saved his life.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #0071ce;\"><strong>Case Studies and Narratives<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The study provides in-depth analysis of two cases with perspectives of both the victim officer and the offender, as well brief narratives of most of the cases studied, such as the following example.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Narrative Example:<\/strong>\u00a0Around noon on a warm winter day in the western portion of the United States, a uniformed officer, who had 31 years of law enforcement experience, was sitting in a booth at a restaurant, eating lunch with two plainclothes officers. Without warning, a 30-year-old man entered the restaurant and made his way over to the officers. As he approached, the man withdrew a machete from behind his back and, directing his attention toward the uniformed officer, raised it to strike the officer in the head. One of the plainclothes officers alerted the uniformed officer of the man\u2019s actions just in time for the uniformed officer to raise his hand to defend himself. The machete struck the officer\u2019s hand, causing a serious injury. The offender was raising the machete to strike the officer again when one of the plainclothes officers pulled out his 9mm semiautomatic firearm and shot the offender once in the shoulder, causing him to go down to the ground. The offender was taken into custody without further incident. He was convicted of the offense and sentenced to several years in prison. The officer suffered a career-ending impairment to his hand.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #0071ce;\"><strong>More Information Available<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The officers, LEOKA staff, West Virginia University researchers, and others involved spent hundreds of hours compiling the information contained in the study. The officers who participated hope their experiences will help their fellow officers by generating discussion and improving training techniques concerning surprise assaults. While ambushes and unprovoked attacks cannot be prevented entirely, the results of this study may help officers in the field by providing a greater understanding of why these attacks occur, listing specific circumstances in which they have occurred, and relating what some officers have done to survive the attacks and handle the aftermath.<\/p>\n<table class=\" alignright\" style=\"width: 50%;\" width=\"50%\" cellspacing=\"5\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #ffdacc;\">\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>IACP Resources<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings;\">n<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theiacp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2018-08\/IACP_Ambush_Fact_Sheet.pdf\">Ambush Fact Sheet<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings;\">n<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theiacp.org\/training-keys\">Training Key: Officer Safety and Violence Against Police<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theiacp.org\/\">theIACP.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-family: Wingdings;\">n<\/span> \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/officer-safety-corner-protecting-officers-from-ambush-attacks-key-insights-from-law-enforcement-executives\/\">Protecting Officers from Ambush Attacks: Key Insights from Law Enforcement Executives<\/a>\u201d (article)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>In addition to the information sampled herein, the full study includes an academic discussion of human reactions to crisis events, a detailed methodology, and the various resources consulted during the study. The study will be accessible via LEOKA\u2019s Community of Interest within Justice Connect on the FBI\u2019s Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cjis.gov\">www.cjis.gov<\/a>. For questions and additional information, contact the LEOKA Program at <a href=\"mailto:leoka.training@fbi.gov\">leoka.training@fbi.gov<\/a>.<span style=\"font-family: Webdings;\">&#x1f6e1;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><sup>1<\/sup> FBI, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ucr.fbi.gov\/leoka\/2019\/resource-pages\/about-leoka\">Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted (LEOKA) Program<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><sup>2<\/sup> The data and examples presented in this article are all drawn from the FBI LEOKA Program\u2019s study, <em>Ambushes and Unprovoked Attacks: Assaults on Our Nation\u2019s Law Enforcement Officers <\/em>(forthcoming)<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Please cite as<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">James J. Sheets and Jennifer Kniceley Sprouse, \u201cAmbushes and Unprovoked Attacks: New FBI Study Examines Assaults on Law Enforcement,\u201d <em>Police Chief<\/em> 86, no. 2 (2019): 26\u201329.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Officers being attacked without warning has become more frequent, and data from the FBI\u2019s Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program confirm a steady increase in these assaults for the past several years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":47778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[1001,204,1002],"class_list":["post-47772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-officer-safety-wellness","tag-ambush-attacks","tag-officer-safety","tag-violence-against-police"],"acf":{"post_author":"James J. Sheets, PhD, Liaison Specialist, and Jennifer Kniceley Sprouse, Writer-Editor, FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division","main_category":"Officer Safety & Wellness","legacy_article_id":"","legacy_issue_id":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.4 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ambushes and Unprovoked Attacks: New FBI Study Examines Assaults on Law Enforcement - Police Chief Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The most recent 30 years of data show the total number of officers feloniously killed declined consecutively for each 10-year time period between 1987 and 2016. 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