ABSTRACT
Clinton Van Zandt (undated) noted that FBI statistics indicate that between 1981 and 1990, a 10-year period, 3.7 million assaults occurred on police officers, and some 617 thousand individuals were identified in these assaults. During the same period, 841 police officers were killed by 1,179 identifiable assailants. Of these cop killers, 798 had prior arrest records, 976 were subsequently charged, 152 were justifiably killed by police, and 45 killed themselves. Thus, 197 of the 1,179 assailants (152 + 45 = 17%) may have had suicidal desires which may have motivated in part their confrontation incident with the police.
