Police saw more excessive violence against cops last year

Police officers more often faced excessive violence last year, though the total number of reports of aggression and violence against police officers remained stable, the police said on Monday. The police blamed the increase in excessive violence on coronavirus demonstrations.

The number of reports of attempted murder against a cop more than doubled between 2020 and 2021, from 6 to 15 reports last year. Reports of people trying to hit a cop with their car increased from 50 in 2020 to 108 last year. Public violence tripled from 135 reports in 2020 to 453 last year. And there were 2,699 reports of people violently resisting arrest last year, compared to 2,433 the year before.

According to the police, the coronavirus pandemic is inextricably linked to these figures. "Demonstrations against the coronavirus policy increasingly attracted people who came specifically to use violence against ht police," the police said. The police also noted that violence was increasingly aimed at individual cops instead of the police as an organization. More police officers also became victims of doxing - people leaking their personal information.

The police are concerned about the increasing social discontent, which results in "increasingly violent aggression and violence against police officers and others with a public task," the police said. "Online harassment and threats affect not only the officer in question but also their home front. It affects the privacy of police officers, and that crosses a line."

The total number of reports of aggression and violence against police officers remained stable last year at 13,000. There were fewer reports of violence in the nightlife due to lockdowns. And officers faced less verbal abuse during their work.