Two on-duty California police officers were killed in a 24-hour span this week as the number of police officers who’ve died on duty climbs to a disturbingly high rate.
Detective Luca Benedetti, a 12-year veteran of the San Luis Obispo Police Department, was shot to death Monday after he and several others were executing a search warrant for stolen property in an apartment building. Dead at only 37, he leaves behind a wife and two young children. Detective Steven Orozco, another officer at the scene, was shot and wounded and is being treated at a hospital.
Just hours later, 30-year-old Officer Jimmy Inn, of Stockton, was shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence call. His murderer reportedly shot him at the front door of the home, then went back inside at attempted to strangle an 8-year-old boy to death before he was tackled by another resident and, finally, was shot and killed by another police officer who quickly arrived on the scene.
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks every death of a police officer who dies in the line of duty, as of April 27, 124 cops had fallen while on the job so far in 2021. While a little more than half of those (64, to be exact) were deaths attributed to COVID, another 23 were fatally shot, an average of roughly one every 5 to 6 days. That’s more half the number of police officers shot to death in all of 2020 (which was 45, per the ODMP), and it’s not even the end of May.
So far this year, another 9 cops were killed by vehicular assault, two were stabbed, and four died after being assaulted.