An unclassified FBI report disclosed Thursday on fatal shootings of police officers last year found that law enforcement was "de-policing" more often because social-justice movements like Black Lives Matter have become "the new norm."
"Departments — and individual officers — have increasingly made the decision to stop engaging in proactive policing," according to the document, reported by The Washington Times.
However, the study — completed in April by the FBI's Office of Partner Engagement — found that 48 percent of the shootings were committed by whites, though the political efforts have mostly focused on racial tensions.
The report also said that the movements — beginning in 2014 with the death of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri —"made it socially acceptable to challenge and discredit the actions of law enforcement.
"Nearly every police official interviewed," the study said, "agreed that for the first time, law enforcement not only felt that their national political leaders [publicly] stood against them, but also that the politicians' words and actions signified that disrespect to law enforcement was acceptable in the aftermath of the Brown shooting."
Therefore, "law enforcement officials believe that defiance and hostility displayed by assailants toward law enforcement appears to be the new norm."
Overall, 64 police officers were fatally shot last year, up 56 percent from 2015, according to the report.
Twenty-one were slain in ambush-style attacks, "the highest total in more than two decades," the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund told the Times.
The FBI report examined 50 fatal shootings of police officers last year. It found that most of the perpetrators fired to avoid being arrested.
However, 28 percent of them said that they were motivated by hatred against police and a desire to "kill law enforcement" — fueled, in some cases, by the political movements.
"The assailants inspired by social and/or political reasons believed that attacking police officers was their way to 'get justice' for those who had been, in their view, unjustly killed by law enforcement," the report said.
They also said that their bias emanated from not only from their own experiences, but also on "what they heard and read in the media about other incidents involving law enforcement shootings," the document said.
The data cited, for instance, the July 2016 police shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La.
In both cases, assailants said that "they were influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement, and their belief that law enforcement was targeting black males," the report said.
Five officers were killed in the Dallas attack, which coincided with a protest against police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, the Times reports.
Three officers died in Baton Rouge.
According to the report, 48 percent of those who were killed by the police were white, while 36 percent were African-American, 14 percent were Hispanic, and 2 percent were Native Alaskan.
Nearly all, 86 percent, had criminal histories, the Times reports. Sixty percent had used drugs, while 32 percent were under the influence at the time of the attack.
In addition, 26 percent were under active police warrants, and 24 percent had known gang affiliations.
All were men, the Times reports.
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