The FBI released its 2025 Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) report on May 11, 2026, and the headline number is stark: agencies across the country reported 90,178 officer assaults during the 2025 calendar year. That volume translates to a rate of 13.8 assaults per 100 officers — the highest recorded rate in the past ten years, according to the report.
The figure is not simply a raw count driven by a larger officer workforce. The rate itself reached a 10-year peak, meaning the frequency of assaults relative to the number of officers on the job climbed above any point in the prior decade. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program compiled the data as part of its annual effort to provide a national overview of risks faced by law enforcement personnel.
For command staff, the 13.8 rate sets a national benchmark against which individual agencies can measure their own assault trends. The LEOKA report explicitly serves as a primary resource for agencies evaluating officer safety protocols and training needs, according to the FBI.
Line-of-Duty Deaths Moved in the Opposite Direction
The 2025 data contains a notable split. While non-fatal assault frequency climbed to a decade high, the number of officers killed in the line of duty showed a decline compared to previous years, the report states. The divergence between non-fatal assault frequency and fatal incident frequency is one of the defining features of the 2025 dataset.
The LEOKA program compiles information on both felonious and accidental line-of-duty deaths alongside assault data. That dual tracking allows agencies to assess whether safety interventions are reducing lethality even when overall contact-based risk remains elevated. The 2025 findings suggest the two metrics do not always move together.
Firearm Injury Trend Runs Counter to Overall Assault Numbers
One data thread runs directly against the broader assault surge. The number of officers assaulted and injured specifically by firearms has dropped for two straight years, according to the report.
The sequence is precise. In 2023, 517 officers were assaulted and injured by firearms — a 10-year high for that specific category. The number fell to 470 in 2024. In 2025, it dropped again, reaching 445. That is a reduction of 72 firearm-injury incidents over two years from the 2023 peak.
The decline does not offset the record overall assault rate, but it does indicate that the composition of assaults is shifting. More officers are being assaulted, at a higher rate per 100 officers than at any point in a decade, yet the subset of those assaults resulting in firearm injuries is shrinking. The FBI report does not offer an explanatory analysis for that divergence; it records the figures.
How the LEOKA Report Functions and What Agencies Do With It
The LEOKA data collection program is part of the FBI's broader UCR effort to maintain transparency in law enforcement safety metrics across federal, state, and local jurisdictions. Data is compiled annually. The 2025 report also includes comprehensive law enforcement employee counts alongside the assault and fatality statistics, giving agencies a denominator to calculate their own per-officer rates and compare them against the national 13.8 figure.
The report's practical function is direct. Agencies use it to evaluate whether their officer safety protocols and training programs are producing outcomes that align with, or diverge from, national trends. A department whose local assault rate tracks above 13.8 per 100 officers faces a clear signal that current protocols warrant review. One running below that rate still contends with an environment where, nationally, nearly 14 out of every 100 officers were assaulted in a single year.
The FBI has positioned the 2025 statistics as a critical baseline for exactly that kind of local-to-national comparison. Command staff and safety planners now have a fixed reference point: 90,178 total assaults, 13.8 per 100 officers, 445 firearm injuries, and a line-of-duty death count that moved downward. Each number carries weight on its own. Together they describe an operational environment where non-fatal violence against officers is at its most frequent in ten years, even as the most severe outcomes show some improvement.
