Police are both dying and killing more often in 2016

A police officer talks with a boy at the memorial at Dallas Police Headquarters

(Image credit: Laura Buckman/Getty Images)

published 9 July 2016

With five officers killed, Thursday night's shooting at the otherwise peaceful protest in Dallas marked the single deadliest day for police since 9/11, per data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

That incident brings the total of police deaths in America this year to 26. By comparison, only 18 officers had been killed by this time last year. Police have also been ambushed more often this year than last, with 11 ambushes in 2016 to date easily outpacing 2015's eight ambushes total.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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