There was a ten percent drop in the number of police officers killed in the line of duty in 2017.



Police officers from around the country came to San Antonio last July to pay their respects to Officer Miguel Moreno. He and his partner were shot by a suspected burglar while on patrol near San Antonio College. The partner survived. Moreno did not.

"Mo," as his colleagues called him, was one of 128 officers killed in the line of duty in 2017 – down ten percent from the year before.

Jim Pasco of the National Fraternal Order of Police is grateful for the decline, of course, but says there are some worrying trends out there.

"Part of the back-story to last year was that there was a larger number of unprovoked, ambush-type assaults on officers, some of which resulted in fatalities," he tells OneNewsNow.

Pasco says the narrative surrounding several high-profile police shootings has motivated some to take out their frustrations by violent attacks on the men and women in blue. But he says the vast majority of Americans support the police – and they're starting to speak out.

"People who thought that they'd been empowered somehow, by the climate they found themselves in, now find that that climate really hasn't changed. And you're not a hero when you attack a police officer – you're a criminal," he says.

The long blue line will continue to protect and serve regardless of the danger – which Mo's chief, William McManus, suggested at the late officer's funeral service.

"To those who have disdain – disdain for or would advocate violence against police officers - I have a message for you: there will never be a legitimate reason that would justify such a warped point of view," he said. "We may not agree with what you're saying but as officers we'll put our lives on the line to defend your right to protest – even when you're protesting us."