Peace Officers Memorial Day
Knoxville, Iowa – Tuesday May 15 is Peace Officers Memorial Day. The holiday was created on October 1, 1961, when Congress asked the president to designate May 15 to honor peace officers. President John F. Kennedy signed the bill into law on October 1, 1962.
The following information comes from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. http://www.nleomf.org/
ยท There are more than 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers now serving in the United States, which is the highest figure ever. About 12 percent of those are female.
Crime fighting has taken its toll. Since the first recorded police death in 1791, there have been over 19,000 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Currently, there are 19,660 names engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. 157 are Iowa law enforcement officers.
A total of 1,799 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 10 years, an average of one death every 53 hours or 164 per year. There were 163 law enforcement officers killed in 2011.
On average, over the last decade, there have been 53,469 assaults against law enforcement, resulting in 15,833 injuries and 164 deaths each year.