Police Officers Killed on Duty: Replicating and Extending a Unique Look at Officer Deaths

In a unique exploration of line of duty police deaths, Kachurik and colleagues (Kachurik, S., Ruiz, J., & Staub, M. (2013). Police officers killed on duty: a different view. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 15(2), 1–11.) found that officers with greater social investment (ie, officers who were married and had children) were less likely to be feloniously killed than were single officers. Here, the analyses are replicated in a specific city over several periods to confirm this relationship. Focusing on Baltimore Police Department officers killed in the line of duty between 1808 and 2006, Kachurik and colleagues' findings that greater social investment did indeed decrease the likelihood of felonious death on the job — are replicated here. However, whereas the previous authors found children, but not marriage, to be significantly related to manner of death, the current study finds the opposite — marriage, but not the number of children an officer has, was significantly associated with officer homicide. Contrary to Kachurik et al., officers with less experience were significantly more likely to die feloniously than were their more tenured counterparts. In addition, the study finds that officers were more likely to die feloniously in certain districts.