In light of the recent tragic deaths of three civilian police volunteers, there has been a fair amount of discussion throughout the law enforcement profession regarding whether or not civilian patrol-type volunteers should be used. The three deaths I am referring to involve Mr. Jim Durant of the Scarborough, Maine, Police Department, who on December 14, 2006 was struck and killed by a motorist while assisting with traffic control, and most recently, NYPD Auxiliary Officers Nicholas Pekearo and Eugene Marshalik, who were both gunned down at virtually point blank range by a deranged killer running from approaching armed police officers after he killed another man in a local restaurant.

Ultimately the final decision rests with the law enforcement chief executives who run their agencies to decide whether or not to use unarmed civilian volunteers in a patrol-type capacity to provide extra eyes and ears on the streets, and/or to further assist with additional non-enforcement actions that can free up officers to focus on the enforcement aspect of their jobs.

While it's certainly understandable to see why chiefs of police and sheriffs would express concern over the potential loss of life of a community member acting as a volunteer for their agency, it's critical to make these decisions armed with all the facts versus an emotional decision based on recent events.

The true risk

The fact of the matter is, based on the statistics of one civilian volunteer being killed in the line of duty per year, your volunteers are ten times more likely to be killed in a car accident while driving to your station to volunteer than while actually volunteering on the streets. Hard to believe, but the facts are there. There are approximately 200 million registered drivers in the United States, and 40,000 people are killed each year in traffic-related accidents. That's a one in 5,000 chance you will be killed in a traffic accident versus a one in 100,000 (there are approximately 100,000 civilian patrol volunteers in the U.S.) chance you will be killed performing volunteer duties on the street with law enforcement.

Think about that--more people are killed each and every year in traffic accidents than the total number of people killed on 9/11, plus all our military casualties fighting the war on terrorism, plus all the police officers killed in the line of duty since the numbers were first recorded, plus all of the nation's over 15,000 citizens murdered in any given year. Add all of those together and they still do not equal the total number of citizens killed each and every year in traffic accidents.