Are you 'playing the lottery'?

Author: J. Kevin Kimsey

According to 2004 FBI Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted Report Statistics:

a. Data was collected from 10, 249 agencies that provided services for 226 million persons (76.8 percent of the nation’s population) and employed a total of 499,396 officers.

b. Of these 499,396 officers, 59,373 were assaulted while performing their duties which is a rate of 11.9 assaults per 100 officers (a ratio of 1 : 8.411)

c. Of the 59,373 officers that were assaulted, 16,563 were injured (a 1 : 30.151 ratio)

and finally...

d. 57 officers were killed by felonious assault, making the odds for being killed as a LEO in the performance of their duties (a ratio of 1 : 8761)

How many of you play the lottery? How often?

Most lottery games have similar odds. One that I researched which has a prize in the hundred of thousands of dollars range has the odds of winning stated at a 1 : 575,757 ratio. Another one I looked into which has a winning prize in the millions of dollars, has the odds of winning stated to be a 1 : 175,711,536 ratio.

Many play the lottery because of the possibility of winning, no matter how small that possibility may be.

Yet, with the likelihood of being a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty so much higher... police officers are still more likely to buy a lottery ticket than they are to regularly practice things like shooting, handcuffing, etc. — the things that will help them stay off the list of officers killed in the line of duty).

Then question becomes, what are you going to do about that?