THESE ARE ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS TIMES FOR POLICE OFFICERS

Four officers were shot Sunday because it has become ‘fashionable’ to kill cops

38 police officers were shot to death in all of 2015. So far this year 56 officers have been shot to death. Why the alarming 71 percent increase in police deaths by gunfire? I maintain that Black Lives Matter rhetoric has made it ‘fashionable’ to kill cops.

Less than six months ago, four officers in Dallas and three officers in Baton Rouge were assassinated. Four officers were shot nationwide on Sunday, one of them fatally and another wounded critically. Three of the shootings were ambushes that were obviously targeted assassinations.

San Antonio police officer Benjamin Marconi, 50, had pulled a traffic violator over in front of police headquarters late Sunday morning. Marconi apparently returned to his car to write up the citation. As he was sitting in the cop car, a car pulled up behind him. A black man got out of that car, went up to Marconi and shot the officer in the head. The 20-year veteran was rushed to a hospital but did not survive the head shot. On Monday afternoon a SAPD SWAT team arrested Otis Tyrone McKane for the ambush slaying of Marconi.

Another 20-year veteran officer was shot in St. Louis Sunday evening. The 46-year-old police sergeant was stopped in traffic when another car pulled up beside the cop car. An occupant of that car fired a volley of shots through the officer’s rolled-up window, striking him twice in the face. Although critically, wounded, he is expected to survive. The shooter, a black man suspected in a series of robberies and a murder, was subsequently shot to death in a shootout with the police.

Also on Sunday evening, a police officer on Florida’s Sanibel Island was shot during a routine traffic stop. As in the San Antonio shooting, Sanibel officer Jarred Ciccone was sitting in his car when another car drove by and an occupant fired a volley of shots, striking Ciccone in the shoulder. He was taken to a hospital and released after being treated for his wound. The shooter, a white man, was later wounded in the shoulder and back during a gunfight with cops. He got away, but later surrendered at his home.

Another officer was shot Sunday evening in Gladstone, Missouri, a northern suburb of Kansas City. Unlike the other shootings, this was not a targeted assassination. During a routine traffic stop, a passenger beat feet and was chased by cops from Gladstone and Kansas City. When they caught up to him, a struggle occurred during which the white man in his late teens pulled out a gun. During an exchange of shots he was killed and a Gladstone cop was wounded. The officer’s injury was not life threatening.

Hardly a day goes by now without some police officer getting shot somewhere in this country. Fortunately most of the shot officers survive, but 56 cops killed so far this year is a testament to how much more dangerous, especially lately so, policing has become since the Black Lives Matter movement got started.

Because of all these shootings, you can’t blame a cop for having a nervous trigger finger.