Two FBI agents were gunned down and three others were hurt from a shooting during a search warrant execution in Sunrise, Florida, Tuesday morning, the agency said.
Two of the wounded agents were hospitalized and are in stable condition, the FBI said. The third injured agent didn’t need to be hospitalized, the FBI said.
The shooting took place around 6 a.m. in Sunrise, about 10 miles from Fort Lauderdale, while officers were trying to execute a search warrant for a “violent crimes against children case,” the FBI said.
FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) President Brian O’Hare said the search was “to seize evidence in connection with suspected possession of child pornography.”
The subject of the search is dead, the FBI said.
The two slain agents were identified as Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger, FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
“Special Agent Alfin and Special Agent Schwartzenberger exemplified heroism today in defense of their country,” Wray said in a statement. “The FBI will always honor their ultimate sacrifice and will be forever grateful for their bravery. We continue to stand by our FBI Family, and the families of these Special Agents, in the days to come, bringing every resource we can to get through this together.”
“These Agents were working to protect the most vulnerable in our society,” O’Hare said in a statement. “FBIAA stands with the Agents’ families and pledges our support to them during this difficult time.”
“In 2019, 89 officers died in the line of duty. While every death is tragic, almost half (41) were accidental. That same year, officers shot and killed 999 people. Police are 20.8 times more likely to kill than be killed by a criminal. We must drastically reduce the use of deadly force in this country” Is he correct that in 2019, police were 20.8 times more likely to kill than be killed by a criminal? Is he correct?
Police officer deaths vs. deaths caused by police, by the numbers
To back up his claim, Larson’s office cited statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the number of law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty during 2019.
According to those statistics, 89 officers were killed in such incidents last year. Forty-one of those officers were killed accidentally, the FBI says, most often in car accidents.
That leaves 48 of what the FBI calls “felonious” deaths, which are deaths caused by criminal acts.
Turning to the number of people killed by police last year, Larson’s office pointed to the Washington Post’s “Fatal Force” database, which since 2015 has been logging fatal shootings by on-duty police officers throughout the U.S. The Post tracks such cases by following local news, law enforcement websites, and social media, submitting open records requests, and verifying incidents with the police department in question.
In 2019, 999 people were shot and killed by police, according to the database.
In his Facebook post, Larson does the math: If criminal acts led to 48 officer deaths in 2019, and officers killed 999 people in the same year, that would make police approximately 20.8 times more likely to kill someone than being killed in a criminal act.
The Post database breaks down another important data point: Black Americans are more likely to be shot and killed by police than white Americans. Black people account for less than 13% of the U.S. population but are killed by police at more than double the rate of white people.
Black people are killed by police at a rate of 32 deaths per million people, hispanic people at a rate of 24 per million, and white people at a rate of 13 per million, according to the database.
Larson said police are “20.8 times more likely to kill than being killed by a criminal.”
FBI statistics and a national database show that checks out: In 2019, police killed 999 people, and 48 officers were killed by a criminal act in the line of duty.
We rate Larson’s claim True.
