美国国家公共电台 NPR How The Perceived 'War On Cops' Plays Into Politics And Policing

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

Police will remember 2016 as a grim chapter in what some of them started calling the war on cops. As NPR's Martin Kaste reports, the ambush 1 killings 2 this year led police to feel like they were under siege.

MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE 3: The darkest moment for American police this year was July 7 in downtown Dallas, when police officers doing security for a peaceful protest march suddenly found themselves under attack.

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: These law enforcement officers were targeted, and nearly a dozen officers were shot. Five were killed.

KASTE: And those weren't the only cops targeted this year. Deadly ambushes 4 followed in Baton 5 Rouge 6, Des Moines, Palm Springs.

SETH STOUGHTON: There has been an increase in the total number.

KASTE: That's Seth Stoughton, a former cop, now an assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina. He's been tracking premeditated murders of law enforcement officers, what he calls police assassinations 7. And he says the number of police killed like this has jumped from five or six last year to somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 12 this year.

STOUGHTON: It looks like a huge increase, and it is a huge increase. But it's a huge percentage increase involving very small numbers.

KASTE: Twelve deaths, horrible as they are, have to be put into the statistical 8 context of a country with close to a million law enforcement officers. Stoughton says statistical context is important.

STOUGHTON: On the other hand, it's not helpful at all because police officers don't feel any less under siege - don't feel any less threatened because I pull up a spreadsheet.

KASTE: And that's where this gets tricky 9. For the last couple of years, academics and police reform groups have been pushing back against the idea of a war on cops by citing big-picture statistics, for instance, the fact that, overall, far fewer police are killed on duty now than a generation ago. But those cold stats sometimes aren't enough to change perceptions. Major Max Geron says he's been hearing the phrase war on cops a lot this year from his fellow officers.

MAX GERON: They use it in social media. They use it in their discussions. And for many officers, there is that belief.

KASTE: Geron himself doesn't like the phrase war on cops. But he understands where it comes from, especially where he works - in the Dallas Police Department.

GERON: The human brain is a narrative 10 processor. And the stories and the things that these officers particularly witnessed serve to reinforce the idea that they are being victimized, that they are being attacked, whether that is in fact the overall case or not.

KASTE: The belief in a war on cops can have real political consequences. It's been used as an argument against police reform movements such as Black Lives Matter. And it also led many rank-and-file officers to support Donald Trump 11 during the campaign. And it's not just a left-right thing. Gun control groups are also making an issue of police deaths. Without going so far as talking about a war on police, the group Everytown for Gun Safety says shootings of police are an argument for stricter background checks on gun sales. Sarah Tofte is the group's research director.

SARAH TOFTE: What we're seeing is more cops are being shot in states without background check laws. And, you know, I think a piece of that is, you know, fewer dangerous individuals are able to get easy access to firearms.

KASTE: Politics aside, the war on cops is also having a practical effect on everyday policing. In Dallas, Major Geron says the officers there are now being more cautious. They're more likely to wait for backup, which he thinks is a good thing. But he doesn't want that caution to become something darker.

GERON: Along with the discussions about safety and security, we, as leaders, need to continue to push the message of empathy with our citizenry. They're not the enemy.

KASTE: After an attack like the one in Dallas, he says, police have to fight the tendency to see the job as a matter of us versus 12 them.

Martin Kaste, NPR News.