Assaults on LAPD Officers and Officer-Involved Shootings Rise in 2011

In the early morning hours of May 18, LAPD officers came upon a fight that was taking place in the parking lot of the Hacienda Carona nightclub in North Hollywood.

According to LAPD Capt. Peter Whittingham, when the officers approached, one of the suspects got in his car and backed up, colliding with the officers' squad car. As the car sped out of the parking lot, the driver ran over his own passenger, who had jumped out of the vehicle. The suspect then grabbed a hold of an officer who had leaned into the car to try and stop him and dragged the officer out of the parking lot and up the street before the officer .

The driver escaped the scene, his passenger was critically injured with trauma to the head, and the officer amazingly avoided serious injury.

The incident was just one of many officer-involved shootings and assaults on police officers that took place in 2011 in Los Angeles. According to an Associated Press report, there have been 43 officer-involved shootings in Los Angeles this year, compared with 25 in 2010, and there have been 185 assaults with a deadly weapon against officers this year, compared with 146 in 2010. The category is defined as any incident that is likely to cause death or great bodily injury.

Quite a few of these incidents have taken place in the North Hollywood Division's patrol area.

On Oct. 9, a man is believed to have in Sun Valley after allegedly calling 911 and reporting there was a man shooting at houses. When two LAPD North Hollywood officers arrived, the man levelled a weapon believed to either be a rifle or a b.b. gun at an officer, who shot and killed him.

On Sept. 6, two LAPD officers were injured when a man , shattering a window and injuring them as they were responding to an assault call in North Hollywood.

On June 21, undercover Glendale police officers in North Hollywood after they allegedly rammed the officers' car, wounding one of the suspects.

Police Chief Charlie Beck has speculated the reason for the increase in attacks is that advances in technology have led to quicker response times and more confrontations between officers and suspects, according to the AP report.

"Technology is allowing officers to better pinpoint crimes and get to the crime scene before a violent felon has exited," said Craig Floyd, chairman and CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, according to the AP. "Maybe that explains why violent crime is going down while the violence against officers is going up."