Why Police Fitness Matters

 The standard for police injury and death statistics is the FBI's annual Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted. In 2011, over 2,000 officers were assaulted with a firearm and for good reason many cops focus on these types of assaults by practicing their skills at the range and keeping their weapons in good condition. Unfortunately, if you dig a little deeper you see that among the almost 55,000 police officers assaulted in 2011 about 80% of them were assaulted with 'Personal weapons' such as hands, feet, teeth etc. Only 4% were assaulted with firearms, 1% with knives, and the other 14% were assaulted with 'Other dangerous weapons' such as baseball bats etc.  Overall, about 1 out of every 10 police officers will be assaulted in a given year.

Conversely, a recent study by John Violanti PH.D, a former police officer and now researcher out of the University of Buffalo, New York reports that 40% of police officers are obsese (Obese not just overweight) and police also had an increased risk for metabolic syndrome, brain cancer, and suicide. That makes the average cop 4x more likely to be obese that be assaulted. Imagine the outrage from the LEO community if over 200,000 cops were being assaulted every year. But we don't seem to care that cops are eating themselves into early graves.

This is not intended to downplay the significance of police officer assaults, especially those involving firearms. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Since 80% of assaults are typically fist fights, it stands to reason that cops who take care of their bodies and exercise regularly are more likely to survive and win these battles. It doesn't matter how clean your firearm is if you are sick at home because you can't stand to eat broccoli. It doesn't matter how far you can hit a target from if you have a heart attack in your cruiser responding to the call. Many know the embarrassment of getting burned in a foot pursuit chasing some kid drinking but it won't be just embarrassing if the suspect is running because he just stabbed your beat partner or crashed his car and left somebody seriously injured. If not for themselves and their families cops owe it to the citizens they protect and their beat partners to stay in shape.