• Ten of the 34 law enforcement officers shot and killed with a handgun had their own weapons turned against them and were killed with a government issued service handgun.

• Thirty-one of the 45 officers killed with firearms were wearing body armor (i.e.: bullet-proof vests) at the time they were killed. In four incidents, bullets penetrated the vest, all were with rifles.

• Over half of all U.S. law enforcement killings occurred in the South. The FBI report found that 28 officers were killed in the South, 13 in the West, 8 in the Midwest, and 3 in the Northeast.

• According to FBI statistics, no law enforcement officers have been killed in Iowa since before 1987. Only 3 other states (Delaware, South Dakota, and Vermont) have similar records.

• In 2003, seven law enforcement officers were killed in Virginia, more than any other state that year. Since 1987, there have been 102 law enforcement killings in Texas – two times that of any other state.

In addition, the FBI report showed that a total of 57,841 officers were assaulted in 2003. Of these, 16,339 officers sustained injuries. Firearms were used in 3.2 percent of these assaults. In eighty-one percent of these incidents, personal weapons (i.e. hands, fist, feet, etc,) were used.

Eighty officers were also reported to have been accidentally killed in the line of duty in 2003. The circumstances of these deaths include, but are not exclusive to, vehicle accidents, drowning, and accidental shootings.

The complete FBI report is available at www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm.