Is Texas No. 1 in Law Enforcement Deaths?

Our weekly check-in with the Texas Truth-O-Meter.

By Alain StephensSeptember 21, 2016 9:43 am,

After the July 2016 ambush shootings of five Dallas police officers, there was much discussion about the dangers of police work and if (or how) the shootings, which also wounded nine officers and two civilians, might damage police-community relations.

Here on the Standard, we drew a claim to U.S. history from Charley Wilkison of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), a law enforcement advocacy and lobbying group.

Laura Rice, interviewing Wilkison, said: “I wondered if there’s been sort of a heightened sense of fear since Dallas or if officers are also kind of feeling an outpouring of support from communities.”

Wilkison, CLEAT’s executive director, replied: “I think there’s a heightened sense of reality because the fear part, of course officers are trained to deal with that. But Texas has lost the most — and I say that every time you guys invite me on — Texas has lost the most law enforcement officers in the line of duty of any state in America. So that’s absolutely something [police officers] are aware of coming into the job, coming into the profession.”

Is that a fact? Gardner Selby of the PolitiFact Texas fact-checking team has the answer.

Hear how Wilkison’s claim scored in the player above.