UTAH (ABC 4 News) - Three men and one woman, killed while protecting Utah citizens. 2010 has been the deadliest year for law enforcement officers in nearly a quarter century part of a forty-percent nationwide increase in officer deaths. But is it a trend. That depends on whom you ask.
2010 had barely begun when Utah lost an officer. Millard County Deputy Josie Fox was gunned down January 5 near Delta when she stopped a car she suspected had been stolen.
April 29 - Sevier County Sheriff's Sergeant Franco Aguilar died while investigating an accident on an I-70 bridge. Another car slid into the accident scene, sending Aguilar over the edge and 125 feet to the ground below.
June 7 – U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Officer Joshua Yazzie crashed and died while responding to a call to help paramedics dealing with a violent patient.
August 26 - Kane County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Harris died while tracking a burglary suspect. Harris walked into an ambush in the hills outside Fredonia, Arizona, where a man with a rifle shot and killed him.
2010 has been the third deadliest year for law enforcement in Utah history, equaling the previous six years combined. Is this a terrible trend? One sheriff says no.
“To suggest for a moment that there is some singular issue that's knitting all this together,’ says Salt Lake Sheriff Jim Winder. “You know, there just isn't."
Winder says law enforcers accept the risks that come with the job.
“Every officer knows that when they go to work on any given day they could be the victim of a shooting, they could be the victim of a heart attack, they could be the victim of a traffic accident, just by the nature of what we do."
The sheriff is also quick to point out law enforcement is not the most dangerous occupation in America. He says far more construction workers are injured and killed on the job than police officers.
Traffic accidents are the most frequent cop killers. UHP Trooper Rachel Zubel narrowly escaped death last January on I-15 near sunset. She was standing next to a stopped car when a minivan lost control and slid into her, ripping her jacket off her body and knocking her to the pavement. It was another reminder of how police depend on the citizens they serve.
"Anything that citizens can do to reduce the crime rate is going to help their police officers," says Captain Kelly Sparks, Deputy Director of Utah’s Peace officer Standards and Training Academy.
He points to the memorial plaque inside the entrance to the academy.
“Every cadet and officer who enters this building can’t miss it,” he says. “It serves not only as a memorial to our fallen officers but also as a reminder to our young officers of the risks they face when they serve.”
The giant medallion reads: "All give some. Some give all."
All four officers who died in 2010 left behind spouses and all of them left behind children - eleven children in all.
