The FBI released its 2025 Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) report on May 11, 2026, and the headline number is stark: 90,178 law enforcement officers were assaulted in the line of duty during 2025, according to the report. That figure translates to a rate of 13.8 assaults per 100 officers — the highest recorded in the LEOKA program's history. Non-fatal assaults have climbed on a consistent upward trajectory since 2021, the report shows, with no year in that span reversing the trend. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program serves as the primary national repository for this data, and the FBI continues to press agencies to participate in the UCR program to ensure the figures accurately reflect conditions on the ground.
The report is available to both the public and law enforcement professionals through the FBI's Crime Data Explorer, which also hosts historical LEOKA data, enabling long-term trend analysis across multiple reporting cycles.
Felonious Deaths Drop, but the Gap With Assaults Widens
While the assault numbers climbed, felonious line-of-duty deaths moved in the opposite direction. Fifty-three officers were killed in felony acts during 2025, down from 64 in 2024 — a decrease of 17.2%, according to the FBI report. That single-year drop is notable. It does not, however, soften the contrast between declining fatalities and the record-setting frequency of physical assaults. The two trends are running in opposite directions, and the FBI's 2025 findings draw direct attention to that divergence.
Of the 53 officers killed, 43 died from gunshot wounds, the report states. The majority of those killed were White males. Geographically, the Southern region of the United States recorded the highest concentration of fatal incidents during 2025.
Circumstances on the Ground: Holding Cells, Transport, and High-Risk Environments
The 2025 report provides a comprehensive analysis of the circumstances surrounding both fatal and non-fatal encounters, according to the FBI. That analysis includes specific attention to high-risk operational settings — holding cells and officer transport situations are among the environments the report identifies as presenting ongoing challenges. For command staff, those details are directly actionable. The FBI states the data is intended to help commanders identify trends tied to officer safety and operational risk, and the LEOKA findings are used by federal, state, and local agencies to shape training programs and tactical policy.
The 2025 special report also includes updated law enforcement employee counts alongside the casualty and assault data, giving agencies a fuller picture for benchmarking assault rates against actual staffing levels. That context matters when calculating rates per 100 officers and when comparing figures across jurisdictions of different sizes.
How the LEOKA Program Works and What Comes Next
The LEOKA program, administered through the FBI's UCR Program, collects data on both felonious and accidental line-of-duty deaths from participating agencies across the country. The 2025 report represents a special release, published May 11, 2026, with the stated goal of providing transparency on officer safety trends. Agencies that contribute data to the UCR program feed directly into the national picture that LEOKA produces each cycle.
The FBI's UCR portal provides historical context alongside the current figures, allowing analysts and command staff to situate 2025 data within multi-year patterns. The consistent upward movement in non-fatal assault rates since 2021 is one such pattern — four straight years of increases, now culminating in the highest assault rate the program has ever recorded.
For agencies reviewing the findings, the FBI's Crime Data Explorer is the access point for the full report and underlying data tables. The report is positioned as a working document for the profession: a resource for training developers, policy writers, and operational commanders assessing where their officers face the most concentrated risk.
