THE BEAT
John Matthews (Making It Safer) Podcast Interview Transcript

[00:00] Welcome to The Beat—a podcast series from the COPS Office at the Department of 
Justice.  Featuring interviews with experts from a varied field of disciplines, The Beat provides 
law enforcement with the latest developments and trending topics in community policing.
      
[00:16] Jennifer Donelan:  Hello and welcome to The Beat.  I’m Jennifer Donelan, your host.  
Today, we’re going to be talking about a new publication, Making It Safer.  It was released by 
the COPS Office and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in late March.  But 
we have John Matthews.  He is the director of Federal Partnerships with the National Law 
Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, and he’s going to be talking with us about the report.  
And really, what was the story behind the development of this report?

[00:45] John Matthews:  Well, the real genesis of the report is that we wanted to look at officer 
line of duty death fatalities but not just to examine how the officers died, but to see if there 
were patterns, trends, behaviors, actions, decisions that we could cull out of the research to 
keep other officers alive.  And so in paying tribute to our fallen officers, we looked at the data.  
We studied the research.  We analyzed it, and we said we have some key findings that we think 
we can pass on to the law enforcement community to help keep our officers safe out there on 
the street.

[01:21] Jennifer Donelan:  Was this a big undertaking looking at all of these numbers from 
across the country?

[01:27] Matthews:  At the Memorial Fund, we have records.  Our research team has records of 
all of the officer line of duty deaths, and so we have that in our database.  I think it’s the most 
comprehensive officer line of duty death database in the entire nation.  We update our stats 
every single day.  You can go onto our website and find out today exactly where you are as far 
as line of duty deaths, were they firearm, were they traffic, or other type of fatalities. 

This report took us over a year to complete, and it looked at data from 2010 to 2016.  But since 
we finished it up at the end of the year, we also included 2017 data.  So a little over three 
months from the time we stopped the data collection, the report was on the street and out into 
the hands of the law enforcement community so that they could look at this important data.

[02:21] Jennifer Donelan:  Having data in real time, there is really nothing more effective there.  
The key findings.  This is really looking into the past, looking into the lives that we’ve lost, and 
learning and taking from those lessons in an effort to have a safer future for those who are out 
there, serving and protecting us as we speak.  What were the key findings?

[02:42] John Matthews:  Well, I’ll give you some of the key data points first such as domestic 
violence.  Again, it’s the most dangerous call for service.  We see more officers killed by that call 
than any other but followed at number two by suspicious persons.  That’s really, really different 
because suspicious persons a lot of times we don’t get very much information on it.  The 
dispatcher just says oh it’s a suspicious person, respond to it.  So what we take from that is you 
have to keep a heightened sense of awareness all the time when you’re on duty.  You’ve got to 
be situationally aware. When you’re going into a domestic call, we know that we’ve got to be 
careful and we try to take the best actions we can.  Suspicious persons, we really got to be 
careful and say, no, I want to be prepared because I could face anything.  In our domestic 
violence calls, handguns were still the number one weapon used to kill officers.

Certainly, in 2016 you saw a huge spike in ambush attacks, and so we lost many, many officers 
in ambush attacks.  And so a large part of this report was looking at where did we lose the 
officers.  Unfortunately, a significant percentage, almost half of the officers that we lost were 
not on patrol.  They were not responding to a call for service.  They were sitting in their squad 
car.  They were eating lunch.  They were in a diner.  They were filling their car up with gas.  So 
that’s very, very disturbing to us in law enforcement.

Some other key findings we saw of course are the officers that don’t wear their seatbelts.  If 
there’s one thing that we can tell you, if you want to go home to your family at night, you want 
to see your loved ones again, wear your seatbelt and wear your body armor.  Very, very 
disturbing that every single year when we look at this report, when we do the analysis, the 
number of officers that are not wearing their seatbelt and are killed especially in a single vehicle 
crash, and then the number of officers that are not wearing their body armor.

So that is very disheartening, and so we want that message to go out to our law enforcement 
partners all throughout the nation.  Encourage your officers.  First line supervisors, make sure 
they’re wearing their belts and wearing their body armor.  And one other thing that is a big 
takeaway from this is complacency.  Officers cannot be complacent.  They’ve got to remain 
situationally aware.  Many times we had officers like on traffic stops lose their life even before 
they exited the vehicle.  You’ve got to be tactically aware anytime you’re out there and on duty.  
Those are some of the big takeaways.

[05:21] Jennifer Donelan:  What’s the argument from the law enforcement side or what are you 
up against in trying to convince law enforcement officers to wear their seatbelts?  Is it the 
response time?  Is it your argument that my response time will be reduced or somehow 
affected if I have to remove that seatbelt?

[05:41] John Matthews:  You know I’ve heard every excuse in the world and it’s an excuse.  I’ve 
been in law enforcement for 34 years.  I’ve done every position in law enforcement and let me 
tell you, even when I’m responding to a call for service or if I’m out on the street, as I’m slowing 
down, as I’m approaching the call, as I’m putting my vehicle in park, I’m undoing my belt, I’m 
flicking it out, I’m putting it to the side of me so it doesn’t get hung up on my name badge, and 
it doesn’t get hung up on my gun belt if I’m left-handed.  I’ve heard every excuse.

And when you have to go through officer line of duty deaths every day and every year and you 
have to see the needless deaths, let me tell you, there is no good reason, tactical reason, law 
enforcement reason that you’re not wearing your seatbelt.  And the thing that really gets me is 
this generation of officers - they’ve all grown up on seatbelts.  Right?

[06:35] Jennifer Donelan:  Oh, sure.  [Cross-talking]

[06:38] Matthews:  As children they were put in their booster seat.  They were put in a car seat.  
They got in their car.  They wore their seatbelt.  They wore it all the way up until they put the 
badge on, and then stopped wearing it.  We want to tell you, to plead with you, wear your 
seatbelt, wear your vest, and go home at night to your family, your friends, your loved one.

[06:59] Jennifer Donelan:  You brought up police ambushes and the number of that, just the 
dramatic increase that you’ve seen in that.  When you talk about situational awareness, is that 
the one thing that an officer out there on the streets right now -- because it is an ambush.  
These are ambush attacks.  How do you guide law enforcement to protect themselves against 
that?

[07:26] John Matthews:  Jennifer, that is a great question because you think by definition an 
ambush is a surprise attack, and it is a surprise attack.  But when we break down the data and 
we look at the individual cases, a lot of times we are finding that there is communication 
failures.  Say two officers are responding to a call for service.  The first officer may be the 
primary officer.  The dispatcher is his dispatcher, and she’ll advise him.  This is a call with the 
individual that’s got prior mental health issues.  This is a call with someone that may have 
weapons and may have had violent encounters with the police before.  And the backup officer, 
who may be from another jurisdiction doesn’t get the same information.  And so sometimes it’s 
a communication problem. But there are things that we can be doing in law enforcement to try 
to help reduce these ambush attacks.  Being situationally aware at all times is imperative.  
Knowing your surroundings, changing your route to and from work.  One of the things that I 
found was amazing is that 56 percent of the time when we were ambushed, we weren’t 
answering a call for service.  Nowadays, when you’re sitting in that squad car, I mean that’s a 
huge target for someone that is bent on seeking out law enforcement officers.  So we want you 
to be aware of that.

[08:41] Jennifer Donelan:  Is this -- my last question to you -- because we’re talking about an 
emotional topic, you’re talking about lives lost, you’re talking about people’s feelings, you’re 
talking about people with PTSD as a result, damage, wounds, the whole nine.  Is this a difficult 
conversation to have when you’re talking about lives lost and you’re trying to learn lessons and 
glean lessons from those lives lost in an effort to save more lives?  There is obviously a very 
concrete, wonderful reason behind this.  But is it a difficult conversation to have with people?  
Do people feel like, oh, you’re Monday quarterbacking me, or you’re Monday quarterbacking 
what my officer did?  When in fact, no, you’re trying to save the next officer’s life.

[09:30] John Matthews:  That’s exactly right, and for us it’s not a difficult conversation because 
we’re simply analyzing the data.  We’re looking at the investigation results and all of the 
information that we gather on each of these line of duty deaths.  Our sole goal is to save future 
officers.  For us, even though it’s a hard topic to talk about, even though sometimes people 
don’t want to hear especially a graphic scenario or whatever [0:11:00], if we can go in and we 
can say listen, if we can give you data points that allow you to change your policy, to modify 
your procedure, to talk to your officers in roll call, to provide you information, awareness, 
education that saves somebody's life, it’s all worth it. 

I don’t mind.  I’ve gone to roll call sessions all over the nation and I don’t mind taking five 
minutes out and letting the troops know.  Listen, I’m here to talk to you about these officers 
and how they lost their lives.  But it’s in the context of I don’t want to be back here bearing a 
flag.  I don’t want to see you on the wall at the Memorial.  I want you to go home to your family 
every night and if I can tell you two, three, four things that stick with you during your day, 
during your tour of duty, that you can remember as you’re answering a call for service, hey, he 
said to do this or not to do this, and it keeps you alive, that’s the best job you can have.  So 
when you’re out there talking and working with these agencies and saving lives, I think it’s a 
fantastic job and a fantastic duty, and an obligation that I have to my fellow officers.

[11:08] Jennifer Donelan:  I was going to say tough conversation, utterly critical one to have.  
Thank you so much, John Matthews, for joining us here.  How can listeners find out more about 
this publication?

[11:21] Matthews:  The publication is listed on the COPS Office website.  It’s also on the 
Memorial Fund website at lawmemorial.org.  If you go to our officers safety and wellness 
section, and you just click on the COPS report, Making It Safer comes up is the first report 
you’re going to see.  Take a look at the report.  Read it.  Look at the graphics, really good 
graphics in there, and great suggestions at the end of it.  We’ve got a staff directory on there.  
You can simply call us or email us and we can send you a copy.

[11:52] Jennifer Donelan:  Okay.  Great.  That is lawmemorial.org.  Okay.  Mr. Matthews, thank 
you so much for joining us.

[11:59] Matthews:  Thank you very much.

[12:01] Jennifer Donelan:  Thank you for the work that you’re doing over there.  We know it’s 
saving lives.  Listeners, thank you and please be safe out there and thank you for joining us on 
The Beat.
      
[12:12] The Beat is brought to you by the United States Department of Justice’s COPS Office. 
The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law 
enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, 
and solving problems.  If you have comments or suggestions, please email our response center 
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[13:09] The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily 
represent the official position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to 
specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement 
by the authors or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to 
supplement discussion of the issues. [END 13:34]
      
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