A new year brings new hopes, but it also offers a chance to look back. Several social media posts about 2021 stood out because they made an eye-catching claim: that 2021 was one of the deadliest years in history for law enforcement, with a 55% increase in police fatalities.
The claim was spread on Facebook here and here. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also tweeted it, with most of the posts pointing to gun violence.
However, this Instagram post criticized the stat ― calling it misleading. Why? Because, it said, 301 out of the 458 deaths were actually due to COVID. Here’s how we fact-checked it.
Watch out for cross-posted content
The Instagram post came from an account called nastyfeminism. However, the post is a screenshot of a tweet. As a general media literacy tip, watch out for cross-posted content like this. When posts jump platforms (like when you see a TikTok shared on YouTube, or a tweet on Insta), remember that it might have lost some important context along the way. The screenshotted tweet included a headline from Fox 28 Columbus, which said, “458 US officers died in the line of duty in 2021, highest since 1930.”
Read past the headlines
The Fox 28 article does report that 301 line of duty deaths were due to COVID-19. So while COVID-19 wasn’t mentioned in the headline, the statistic was mentioned in the story. This is why it’s important to read the entire article.
Head to the original source
Reading through the Fox 28 article, the statistics came from the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial Fund’s 2021 fatality report, which was linked in the article. According to the report, there was a 55% increase in line of duty deaths, and COVID-19 was listed as the leading cause of death among U.S. police officers in 2021. The report also confirms that 301 out of 458 officers died due to direct exposure during their official duties.
However, the tweet shared by nastyfeminism that criticized this stat also took issue with calling COVID-19 deaths “line of duty” deaths — but context is really important here. If an officer contracted COVID-19 while on the job, that would be in the line of duty.
Still, according to the report, it’s tough to know for sure if some of these deaths attributed to COVID-19 happened while on the job. The report states, “There are cases where it cannot be determined whether there was direct contact with a Covid-positive individual while performing in their official capacity; therefore, a determination needs to be made whether it is more likely than not that the officer contracted Covid-19 during the commission of their official job duties.”
Rating
According to the report, there was a 55% increase in police line of duty deaths. And 2021 was one of the deadliest years for police officers. Those are both true statements. But giving just that information without mentioning COVID-19 at all is extremely misleading — especially given that many captions focused on deaths due to gun violence, which instead made up around 13% of the total deaths.
As for the Instagram post of the tweet, it’s also true that as of Dec. 31, 301 out of 458 deaths were due to COVID-19. The report also states that federal, state, tribal and local agencies have been working to determine whether officers were exposed while on the job — which is in the line of duty.
There is a lot of needed context to go around, which is why we’ll rate these all as NEEDS CONTEXT.
