Republicans and at least one Democrat in Congress rolled out legislation on Tuesday that would imprison people for up to 10 years for seriously injuring a police officer — or attempting to do so — with backers saying a new federal punishment is needed to curb "cowardly assaults" on police.



As videos of white cops shooting and killing black people have sparked moves to increase officer accountability, the Protect and Serve Act in the House and Senate offers a counternarrative: Police are increasingly under fire and their assailants must be punished more harshly.

Civil rights groups, however, have accused the sponsors of conjuring a “war on police,” which they say will further divide law enforcement officers from African Americans.

Injuring or killing a police officer is already a crime under state and federal law — with all 50 states enhancing penalties for those who do. But Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, lead sponsor of the Senate bill, said in a statement the legislation "makes clear that no criminal will be able to escape justice when he singles out and assaults those who put on the badge every day to keep us safe.”

His office did not respond to a request to elaborate on how a new federal law would further protect officers.

Hatch’s efforts are backed by William Johnson, executive director of National Association of Police Organizations, who said the measure “is critical, as there is a serious and growing trend of armed attacks on law enforcement officers.”

The overall number of officers killed in felony homicides has fluctuated from 2007 to 2016, according to FBI statistics, without a clear upward trend. They show a low point of 41 killings in 2008 and 2015, and a peak of 72 killings in 2011.

Those figures, however, also show a jump in premeditated officer ambushes in 2016, when there were 17 such deaths, compared with between one and nine the previous decade. The spike in 2016 was partly driven by five officers killed that year in a Dallas shooting.