Police vs Civilians. Who is REALLY more likely to die?

[KentuckyWoman]

We know the answer. Instinctively. And we know why. A teenage grand-niece was using my computer earlier today to work on something for school and uncovered the following stats. Pretty jarring to see it right there in clear numbers.


Police deaths come from https://www.odmp.org
Civilians deaths come from US Vital Statistics.


Police killed on duty
2017 - 187
2018 - 189
2019 - 163
2020 - 168
2021 - 195

Civilians killed by police (covid deaths due to jail conditions not included)
2017 - 161
2018 - 434
2019 - 637
2020 - 461
2021 - 230

[Kaleva]

1. How many of those civilians were dangerous criminals?

[Igel]

2. I'd suggest looking a population totals.

5x as many civilians (at most) were killed as police.

Unless 1/6 of civilians are police, the police are at higher risk.

One online source says there were 660,000 full-time LEOs in the US in 2021. Pop is conveniently 330 million.

One in 500 Americans were full-time LEOs. Police are at much higher risk of being killed by civilians than civilians are of being killed by police.

[KentuckyWoman]

3. Oh, I didn't think of this.

Thank you. I did not think of ratios and have passed the idea to the young lady.