Just how dangerous is police work?
I was reading a CNN article that sensationally talked about "police being under siege" and mentions 24 officers being shot this year (which to me doesn't sound like a lot given the media attention). So I started googling to see how much more dangerous being a cop was than a general citizen. According to FBI, stats there are about 700,000 uniformed police so that 24 is 0.0034%. The CDC says there are 3.5 firearms homicides per 100,000 (0.0035%).
Then I found this article
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-mi ... 053727.php"The 10 Deadliest Jobs: Deaths per 100,000
Logging workers: 128.8
Fishers and related fishing workers: 117
Aircraft pilot and flight engineers: 53.4
Roofers: 40.5
Structural iron and steel workers: 37
Refuse and recyclable material collectors: 27.1
Electrical power-line installers and repairers: 23
Drivers/sales workers and truck drivers: 22.1
Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers: 21.3
Construction laborers: 17.4
Out of approximately one million police and law enforcement personnel, with 126 deaths per year, the death rate for police is 12.6 per hundred thousand.
The most dangerous job in the U.S. is being president. Eight out of 44 presidents died in office, about 18 percent. Four were assassinated, just over 9 percent.
Most policemen killed on the job die in accidents (mostly auto), not from firearm assault, according to the FBI."
I respect law enforcement, but they are hardly "under siege." It bothers me not only when the media sensationalizes stories, but also uses the wrong metric when they report facts (like when they say the "Dow dropped triple digits today!" when in fact the important metric is the percent change, not the absolute value. A triple digit drop in today's Dow is only 0.6% hardly a reason to jump out the window.....)