Fewer names will need to be engraved this year into Northwest D.C.’s National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
The number of law enforcement professionals nationwide who died in 2025 is the lowest in 80 years, according to Bill Alexander, CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
“One death is too many, but 111 men and women died in the line of duty for calendar year 2025,” Alexander said. “The report is certainly encouraging, by virtue of the fact that it’s about a 25% drop from the deaths that we reported in 2024.”
The last time annual officer deaths were at a comparable level was in 1943, when 94 officers were killed in the line of duty.
Firearms-related deaths claimed the lives of 44 officers in 2025, a decrease of 15% from 2024: “It means some opposing party had a firearm and was using it with the intent and purpose to kill a police officer,” Alexander said. “There’s another word for that — murder.”
Alexander said improvements in technology is helping “the hundreds of men and women in uniform who are shot every single year.”
Bulletproof vests have “gotten better and lighter and more malleable, which leads to circumstances where officers are more likely to wear it because it is thinner and lighter, and has a greater stopping force.”
In addition, Alexander said more officers are receiving medical training and equipment.
“When an officer is shot, more likely than not the first person on the scene are going to be fellow officers, and they’re, in many cases, providing the first-tier first response,” Alexander said. “And I’m convinced that’s helping to save lives on that front.”
