Last year was the deadliest period for law enforcement in nearly 100 years. But rising crime rates weren’t responsible for the roughly 458 officers who died in the line of duty in 2021 — Covid was.
For the second year running, the coronavirus was the leading cause of death for active-duty law enforcement, killing 301 people, according to a report from the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum released last week. That’s 65 per cent more Covid fatalities than 2020, likely a result of the highly contagious Delta and Omicron variants.
