The FBI revealed on Tuesday it is conducting a “behavioral analysis study” into an uptick of attacks on law enforcement officers. 

The agency released a national crime report this week, indicating that while overall violent criminal acts have declined, assaults on law enforcement officers on the job are on the rise. Reported assaults on officers increased from over 83,000 in 2023 to 85,730 in 2024, according to the FBI, marking a 10-year high of assaults on law enforcement, up from the 52,448 attacks recorded in 2015. 

Recommended Stories

• Alleged gunman who shot driver in LA car attack arrested
• Who is ICE arresting? Data show 66% of illegal immigrants are criminals
• Search continues for ex-soldier suspected of killing four people in Montana bar shooting

“More officers were feloniously killed from 2021 to 2024 than any other consecutive four-year period in the past 20 years,” said Tim Ferguson, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division. “Between 2021 and 2024, we saw 258 law enforcement officers feloniously killed in the line of duty,” he added, noting that the number included 64 deaths in 2024. 

FBI officials said the agency is carrying out research to determine why assaults on officers are increasing.

“It’s going to be a longer study, because we are doing a real, in-depth behavioral analysis study of why these are occurring,” the official said.

The reported uptick in violence against officers comes amid the Trump administration’s repeated warnings that attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel carrying out immigration enforcement have surged. Assaults on ICE personnel have risen by 413% since 2024, the Homeland Security Department claims. 

“President Trump has a deep respect and admiration for America’s law enforcement officers,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. “Democrats’ continued demonization of our heroic officers is making an already dangerous job even more so. Whether it’s communist candidates like Mamdani trying to defund the police, or Democrat lawmakers slandering ICE officials as ‘nazis,’ the smears must stop. Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to keep Americans safe and unlike The Left, President Trump will always have their backs.

The FBI’s annual crime report has come under criticism for errors and major revisions to publicly released data in the past, most recently last year, when it was revealed the agency updated its 2022 crime statistics in September to indicate a 4.5% rise in violent crime rather than a 2.1% drop it originally reported. 

Part of the issue that came to light in 2024 occurred because the FBI changed its crime reporting program over to a new data collection system in 2021, resulting in a tough transition period for local and state law enforcement to report crimes, according to the agency. 

The FBI’s Reported Crimes in the Nation annual report relies on local law enforcement submitting data to the agency’s federal system. However, not all law enforcement agencies provide the data to the FBI, meaning the entire population is not necessarily covered. And metrics used for the provided data are not always the same across agencies and jurisdictions, leading to potential discrepancies. 

REPUBLICANS PRESS FBI TO EXPLAIN PROCESS FOR UPDATING CRIME STATISTICS

During Tuesday’s call on its latest report, the FBI announced it would start making reports available on a monthly basis to provide a better picture of crime across the country. 

“As we move toward monthly data releases and more agencies submit diverse data on a more frequent basis we can produce an even more timely and accurate picture of crimes in the United States,” Ferguson said.