FBI report shows increase in attacks on law enforcement in 2025

A new federal law enforcement report shows a mixed picture for police safety across the United States in 2025, with the number of assaults against officers reaching their highest rate in a decade, even as officers feloniously killed in the line of duty declined from the previous year.

The Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) drew information from federal, state, county, city, tribal, territorial and university law enforcement agencies nationwide. 

Officials said the data, published this month by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is intended to help departments improve officer safety training and identify trends affecting policing nationwide. 

Report shows increase in attacks on law enforcement

By the numbers:

According to the data, the past decade showed the rate of nonfatal assaults against law enforcement officers continued to increase since 2021.

The report revealed that 90,178 assaults on officers were reported by law enforcement agencies in 2025. Officers were assaulted at a rate of 13.8 assaults per 100 officers, which was the highest officer assault rate recorded in the past 10 years. 

Firearms continued to play a major role in officer assaults. In total, 445 officers were assaulted and injured in incidents involving firearms in 2025. While that figure represented a decline from the 10-year high of 517 officers injured in 2023, it remained significantly above pre-2020 levels.

File: Two police officers in San Antonio, Texas. (Credit: Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

In 2025, 1.6% of assaults involved a firearm in the Northeast, 3.3% in the Midwest and 3.8% in the in the West. The highest percentage was in the South, with firearms used against 4.5% of assaulted officers.

Officers feloniously killed declined

Dig deeper:

Despite an increase in assaults, the analysis of the data showed that the number of felonious officer deaths decreased 17.2% from the previous year. This was the largest decrease in officer deaths since 2017. 

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Last year, 53 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed, 43 of whom were killed with a firearm.

More officers were feloniously killed by firearms (46) in 2024 than any other year from 2021 to 2025.

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