The number of police officers killed by gunfire in the line of duty this year is up 150% according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, a website dedicated to chronicling the deaths of law-enforcement officers.

March was the deadliest month for police deaths so far in 2016, with a total of 16 law-enforcement officers killed. Five of those March deaths were due to gunfire.

Although the overall death total is down 3% from 2015 and the same period this year, the jump in gunfire related deaths is alarming, especially given the constant barrage of anti-police rhetoric by leftist protest groups, including Black Lives Matter.

Some of the deaths appear to be directly traced to animosity towards police. For example, the recent murder of Virginia state police trooper Chad Dermer at a Greyhound bus station in Richmond on March 31 was committed by a man, James Brown III, whose ex-girlfriend told the Associated Press“frequently expressed his hatred towards the police.”

As Breitbart News reported, the Black Lives Matter movement in Minneapolis recently carried out protest action in March that ended up in front of a local police station, where protesters burned the American flag. That protest came after the state of Minnesota announced it would not be seeking criminal charges against two police officers who were involved in the death of convicted criminal Jamar Clark.

Follow Breitbart News investigative reporter and Citizen Journalism School founder Lee Stranahan on Twitter at @Stranahan.