The death of Deputy U.S. Marshal John Perry in St. Louis yesterday marked the second death of an officer with the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency in the line of duty this year. The incidents are shining a light on the expanding role of federal law enforcement in apprehending state and local felons and raising questions about the impact of proposed budget cuts on the safety of federal law enforcement officers.
The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) hadn’t had an officer die in the line of duty from gunfire since the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992 until the death of 24-year-old Deputy U.S. Marshal Derek Hotsinpiller last month. Tuesday’s incident also marked at least the fourth violent confrontation the U.S. Marshals have been involved with since the beginning of the year.
There’s no one answer for why the U.S. Marshals have found themselves increasingly in the line of fire. But all four incidents this year — the deaths of the two U.S. Marshals and the deaths of two task force officers working with the USMS as well as the deaths of two additional Florida police officers in January — came when the agency was pairing with local law enforcement to apprehend non-federal fugitives.
The USMS has seven Fugitive Apprehension Task Forces around the country and another 75 Violent Offender Task Forces run by various regional USMS offices. And the volume of state and local fugitives apprehended or cleared by the Marshals Service through a decade-old initiative has surged from just 15,412 in 2004 to 34,015 in 2007 and 73,915 in 2008. The number peaked at 101,910 in 2009 (likely due to apprehension and Fugitive Safe Surrender programs funded by stimulus funds) then dropped in 2010, when the agency captured or cleared 52,519 violent state and local felony fugitives. The USMS is planning to apprehend or clear 52,000 state and local felony fugitives in 2012.
So for one, the USMS is simply involved in more incidents. Part of that is due to state law enforcement budget cuts, which have made local law enforcement more reliant on the Marshals for help in apprehending dangerous criminals.
Former U.S. Marshals Director John Clark told me in an interview last year that there were a number of factors that could “stretch and strain” the agency’s resources and that their partners on the state and local levels were struggling with budget issues.
“We pride ourselves in working very closely with our state and local counterparts, and they too are struggling with budget restrictions or cutbacks in personnel,” Clark said. “Many of the state and local departments that we’ve dealt with have actually had to reduce the number of police officers on the street.”
“We are able to help in locating wanted people that a lot of the departments are looking for, but also through our task forces we’re able to help supplement their police operations with some of our funding and personnel,” Clark said.
Law enforcement deaths from gunfire in the line of duty are up this year overall, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Sixteen officers have been killed in 2011 compared to thirteen at this point in 2010.
“I know the big question is ‘Why is this happening?'” Jon Adler, National President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, told TPM in an interview.
Adler says his theory is that a combination of issues, including the continuing illegal immigration problem and the effect of drugs on criminals as contributing factors for the apparent rise in violence against federal law enforcement officials.
The shootings have also put a spotlight on the impending budget cuts for both the USMS and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Adler said that the USMS is dealing with an very high volume of fugitive warrants that could increase the risk to law enforcement officers, a risk he anticipated will grow in the next few years as law enforcement officials retire.
“We’re going to have guys that are trying to do more work, they’re tired, and the odds will shift in terms of how many people we have going out on the warrants,” Adler said.
Mark Marshall, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, told USA Today that easy access to guns, increasingly violent criminals and understaffed departments have left officers more vulnerable. “We’ve got to find a way to restore some funding to get those cops back on the street,” he told the newspaper.
The USMS fiscal year 2012 budget proposal notes “an overall increase in productivity” by the Regional Fugitive Task Forces. Yet the administration proposed a small budget cut for the task forces in 2012, a cut they said could be achieved through the consolidation of 17 task force locations.
“This offset will be applied in a manner that will have the least critical impact on the USMS
Violent Offender Task Force network, which includes the 7 Regional Fugitive Task Forces as well as other effective law enforcement program efforts all in support of Presidential and Departmental goals,” the budget proposal said. “This offset will not pose an increased risk to health, welfare and safety of agency personnel and the general public by requiring critical reduction, limitation or elimination of essential training, equipment, analytical support, and law enforcement coordination in general.”
The proposal said the decrease “will have minimal impact on the performance measures that help support and evaluate the effectiveness of an increase in Violent Crime focused agents as resources are strained, however no direct reduction in the number of Deputy Marshals is being requested.”
The U.S. Marshals office in Denver is reviewing their tactics in the wake of the shootings, reports local station KDVR.
“When you look at all the shootings, each individual one is different, but each individual case we’re dealing with very dangerous individuals that have no regard for life and see no other alternative but a deadly situation,” Chief Deputy Ken Deal said.
Attorney General Eric Holder reaffirmed in a statement on Wednesday that the Justice Department’s “commitment to supporting our law enforcement partners – and to ensuring officer safety – will continue to be a top priority.”
