Police associations in Canada said "the number of officers dying on the job was unprecedented," after a cop was shot dead in 2022, but it turns out that the biggest killer of officers is car crashes. CBC News reports on a telling if not particularly reassuring statistic.
new data from University of Ottawa researchers, shared exclusively with CBC News before its publication, shows there are fewer officers dying on-duty now than there have been in past decades. The data also shows car crashes are the leading cause of death among officers on the job.
"It doesn't mean we shouldn't take it seriously … Nonetheless it doesn't mean [police] get to make any claims that they want," said Justin Piché, a University of Ottawa associate professor and supervisor of the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project. Piché casts doubt on claims that policing is more dangerous now than in past years.
Tapping the classic memes: