Photo
Law enforcement officers at the burial service in Zachary, La., last week of Matthew Gerald, one of three Baton Rouge police officers who were shot and killed. Credit Edmund D. Fountain for The New York Times

The pair of attacks that left eight law enforcement officers dead in Texas and Louisiana this month highlighted anew the threat officers face. On average, two officers died on duty each week this year, half killed by gunfire. Here’s a look at the toll so far.

  1. 66
    Deaths So Far This Year

    Shootings were the main cause of officer deaths for the first six months, the first time in three years in which traffic-related fatalities did not top the list, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which published an analysis of its data this week.

    At least 66 federal, state or local law enforcement officers have died on duty so far this year, according to a New York Times analysis of contemporaneous news reports and tallies maintained by two organizations dedicated to honoring the lives of dead officers. Sixty-three were men.

    The groups — the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the Officer Down Memorial Page — arrive at different line-of-duty death tolls for the year, but neither records a substantial increase compared with the same time period a year ago.

    The number excludes a handful of deaths linked to causes from years past, such as the long-delayed effects of complications from vehicle crashes.

  2. Photo
    Tonja Garafola, widow of Brad Garafola, a deputy with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, with her children on Saturday during his funeral in Baton Rouge, La. Credit Pool photo by Travis Spradling
    32
    Deaths by Gun Violence

    The first fatal shootings came less than three weeks into 2016, on Sunday, Jan. 18, when Officer Thomas Cottrell, a policeman in Danville, Ohio, and Officer Doug Barney, an 18-year veteran of law enforcement in the Salt Lake City area, were killed on duty in separate incidents.

    Officer Barney was shot in the head that morning by a man that authorities at the time described as “a violent fugitive who had fled the scene of a traffic accident.” Officer Cottrell was found dead that night shortly after the police were warned that a man was armed and looking to kill an officer.

    The most recent fatal shooting came early Monday morning, when Sgt. Craig Hutchinson, of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office in Texas, was killed during a suspected burglary. Though he was at home when he was killed, the sheriff’s office considered him to be on duty after he radioed in the report of trespassers in his yard.

    According to both memorial groups, the number of such shooting deaths so far this year is nearly twice as high as over the same period last year.

    Nineteen of the officers were shot with a handgun and 12 with a rifle. (One weapon is still unidentified.)


  3. 24
    Deaths in Traffic Accidents

    The road poses almost as much of a threat to officers as firearms. So far this year, at least 24 officers died in vehicle crashes of some kind. In some cases, the fault lay with no one — an officer’s vehicle veering off the road, for example — but, in others, malice or error played a role.

    In one case, Texas officials arrested a man in March whom they accused of using his Kia to kill Officer David Ortiz. In another case, in June, a New Orleans police officer, Natasha Hunter, died after a driver the authorities said was drunk slammed into the back of her marked police car.


  4. 11
    Fatal Shootings in July

    July has been the deadliest month, with 11 officers fatally shot, including the five in Dallas and the three in Baton Rouge. Nine officers were shot and killed in February.

  5. 24
    The States Without a Line-of-Duty Death

    Police departments in almost half the country were spared: 24 states and the District of Columbia recorded no line-of-duty deaths so far this year, according to reports.

    Texas and Louisiana proved to be the deadliest states for officers, recording at least 13 and 7 deaths, respectively. California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia have each lost three officers on duty so far this year.

  6. 39
    Average Age of Officer Who Died

    The average age of the officers who died on duty so far this year was 39, according to the report. The youngest officer to die was 22 years old, while the oldest was 63 years old.

    The officers had served for an average of 12 years before they died, and left behind an average of two children.

Correction: July 30, 2016

A chart on Thursday about the deaths of police officers in the line of duty misstated, in some editions, the date that two officers, Thomas Cottrell and Doug Barney, were killed. It was Sunday, Jan. 17 — not Jan. 18.