STATEMENT: Retired ATF Special Agent David Chipman Responds to Shooting of 5 Law Enforcement Officers in South Carolina
October 3, 2018 — This afternoon, news broke that five law enforcement officers have been shot in Florence County, South Carolina, in an active shooter situation, according to the Florence County Sheriff’s Office. CNN is reporting that one officer is confirmed to have died, four others are injured.
David Chipman, Senior Policy advisor at Giffords and a retired ATF Special Agent of 25 years issued the following statement on the shooting:
“It’s impossible to get through a week without hearing of another senseless and tragic shooting. Today, five brave officers were shot while serving their community, an act of violence that will devastate our nation’s law enforcement community. We’re holding their families and the Florence County in our thoughts.
“We often think of the job law enforcement officers do every day to protect our communities. But all too often, we don’t think about how we can make the job safer for them. Police officers are trained to serve and protect, but our laws make it too easy for dangerous individuals to get a gun and use it. Lawmakers at the local, state and federal levels must finally acknowledge this problem and pass legislation to prevent future shootings, like this one, from occurring.”
Dangerous loopholes in our nation’s gun laws pose serious threats to the safety of law enforcement officers. Firearms-related incidents have been the number one cause of death for law enforcement in 2018 with 31 officers killed from gunfire through June, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s Mid-Year Report. This represents a 24 percent rise over the 25 officers killed by gunfire during the first half of 2017.
It is clear that guns in dangerous hands make law enforcement officers vulnerable: of the over 500 individuals who have killed police officers between 2006 and 2015, 84 percent had previous arrest records, 64 percent were previously convicted of a crime, 47 percent had previous arrests for crimes of violence, and 43 percent had been arrested for weapons offenses. 24 percent of those responsible for the murder of law enforcement had previously been arrested for assaulting an officer or resisting arrest.
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