It’s been a bloody start to 2011 for law enforcement. In a bizarre sequence of events, 11 officers in five states were shot in a 24-hour period between Sunday and Monday of this week. The most brazen attack happened in Detroit where a gunman opened fire inside a police precinct.

This is the opening to an NPR program interviewing John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Jon Shane. Scary. Following the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, attributed initially to anger and frustration fueled by intemperate rhetoric, this bit of news suggests that things are indeed out of control.  And Jon Shane sees it that way.

Prof. SHANE: Well, there’s certainly something to be said for that. I think it follows some bit of a larger trend in the United States, that there’s this overriding sense of entitlement and don’t tread on me. And law enforcement stands between the law-abiding people and this chaos that’s going to erupt, that these would-be criminals would have if they get their way. And it’s, well, police work is intrinsically dangerous, and just kind of highlights the larger social movement that’s afoot.

This is neither the  first time we’ve heard this view, nor the first time it’s come from the mouth of a John Jay professor.  Eugene O’Donnell  pumped and dumped last time, but it failed to ignite.  Note the use of putative academics (to the extent one can consider John Jay College of Criminal Justice part of the Academy, given it’s facially partisan perspective and myopic educational direction), but the fact that the media can put a fella on the air and call him “professor” lends a certain scholarly air to his musings.  Credibility attaches like leather patches to threadbare tweed elbows, and that’s more than enough for most folks.

And if it’s true, then it’s a real problem.  After all, eleven dead cops in 24 hours is, well, a lot.  But the question remains whether these are random or reflect a trend, and if the latter, whether the trend can be attributed to a cause by more than professorial fiat.

At Reason, Radley Balko considers this claim, that there’s a war on cops happening and it reflects an assault on authority.

Dig into most of these articles, however, and you will find there is no real evidence of an increase in anti-police violence, let alone one that can be traced to anti-police rhetoric, gun sales, disrespect for authority, or “don’t tread on me” sentiment. (CNN is one of the few media outlets that have covered the purported anti-police trend with appropriate skepticism.) Amid all the quotes from concerned law enforcement officials in MSNBC’s “War on Cops” article, for example, is a casual mention that police fatality statistics for this month are about the same as they were in January 2010. Right after suggesting to NPR that the recent attacks were related to anti-government rhetoric, Shane acknowledged there has been little research into the underlying causes of police shootings.

What’s particularly interesting is the cross-connection between varying political factions being blamed at the same time. 

anti-police rhetoric, gun sales, disrespect for authority, or “don’t tread on me” sentiment

This runs the gamut, from liberal to libertarian to tea party conservatives and RKBA supporters.  It must be hard to figure out what to wear to the rallies, love beats or camo. 

Balko goes the unfashionable route, crunching numbers to show that this year is little different than last year, but very different from earlier years.

In truth, on-the-job police fatalities have dropped nearly 50 percent during the last 20 years, even as the total number of cops has doubled. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 279 cops were killed on the job in 1974, the worst year on record. That number steadily decreased to just 116 in 2009. The leading cause of death for cops on duty is  car accidents, not violence. For the last several years, the number of officers intentionally killed on the job each year has ranged from 45 to 60, out of about 850,000 cops on the beat. That makes police officers about 50 percent more likely to be intentionally killed than the average American. But contrary to Sheriff Smith’s claim, the job isn’t among the 10 most dangerous in the country, let alone the “the top five,” even if you include officers unintentionally killed in traffic accidents.

The message here is that it’s safer to be a cop than a logger, farmer or fisherman.  Does that mean that angry rhetoric is fueling attacks on people who fish? 

Police are well aware of the power of spin, and have used it well to their advantage over the years in persuading people to respect their authority.  There’s really nothing wrong with this, as they’re promoting their self-interest and making their life, job and situation better.  We all do this, whether consciously or not.

But at a time when videos reveals that those we entrust to protect and serve prefer to serve themselves first sometimes raises the stakes.  When it was just our word against theirs, and law-abiding citizens would be naturally inclined to stand alongside their men in blue when challenged, the effort to remind us that we’re better off calling a cop than a criminal was easy.  Maybe we know too much now.

I recently bemoaned the fact that we have become deluged in police misconduct and abuse, and feared that we were  becoming desensitized toward wrongdoing.  While that concern remains, the counter-effort from John Jay, that hotbed of cop-love propaganda, suggests that the police remain very concerned that people are not becoming inured to police misconduct, but rather growing deeply concerned that the shield may be badly tarnished. 

Let the professors from John Jay take to the airwaves and cry about a war on cops that doesn’t exist.  As long as there are people like Balko to debunk the spin, we’ll get past it.  In the meantime, maybe our daily dose of police misconduct is opening up minds about the reality on the street of police becoming a law unto themselves, putting both bodies and rights at risk.

The more the police apologists and spin-meisters whine, the more it appears they are afraid that people are seeing the truth behind the blue curtain.  If the cops don’t like it, then all they need do is clean up their act and demonstrate the respect for others they wrap around themselves whenever a new video of a beating comes out.  If the professors at John Jay want to do some good, they could spend more time teaching respect for civil rights and less giving interviews about this non-existent war on cops.