Safer than They've Ever Been

Today I read an excellent article about how police training contributes to avoidable deaths, written by a former cop who now researches policing.

One stat he included, and which I want to keep handy, is the incidence of violence against the police, whether injuries or deaths:

Over the last ten years, an annual average of 51 officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty according to data collected by the FBI. In the same time period, an average of 57,000 officers were assaulted every year (though only about 25 percent of those assaults result in any physical injuries). But for all of its risks, policing is safer now than it has ever been. Violent attacks on officers, particularly those that involve a serious physical threat, are few and far between when you take into account the fact that police officers interact with civilians about 63 million times every year. In percentage terms, officers were assaulted in about 0.09 percent of all interactions, were injured in some way in 0.02 percent of interactions, and were feloniously killed in 0.00008 percent of interactions. (emphasis added)

 Injured in .02 percent of interactions.

Killed in .00008 percent of interactions.

That's a lot of zeroes.