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Some interesting end-of-year figures from the Los Angeles Police Department regarding assaults on officers and officer-involved shootings. The Los Angeles Police Protective League reports that LAPD Chief Charlie Beck shared with the Police Commission "assaults on LAPD officers are up 26.7 percent this year compared with 2010. He noted that as assaults on police officers increase, so do the number of officer-involved shootings - up 58.8 percent this year."Beck attributes the nearly two-thirds' increase in officer-involved shootings to "quicker response times" that "may have led to more confrontations between officers and suspects," according to the Associated Press, however why specifically that number is up so much this year is unclear to the LAPD.
In recent years, there have been several high-profile officer-involved shooting in the LAPD and under neighboring law enforcement jurisdictions, like the killing of Manuel Jamines in the Westlake district, the Long Beach Police fatally shooting a man armed with a water nozzle, and, recently, the Downey police fatally shooting an innocent man headed out to the corner store.
When it comes to officers killed in the line of duty, California logged 10 such incidents statewide last year. Overall, there has been a 14% increase in such fatalities nationwide this year, according to CNN.
