The Attorney General’s new report on South Dakota’s 2022 crime stats allows me to update my July 17 report on assaults on police. The A.G. reports 459 assaults on police in 2022, up 24% from the 370 assaults in 2021.
Sioux Falls Police Chief Jon Thum told KELO-TV in July that attacks on his officers were increasing, but in 2022, at least, the Sioux Falls PD saw three fewer assaults than in 2021, a decline of 5% from 59 to 56. But the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office reported a big jump, from 13 in 2021 to 32 in 2022. Add in a couple assaults on Brandon city cops, and Minnehaha County saw 90 assaults on police, up 25% from 72 in 2021.
The Attorney General’s new report on South Dakota’s 2022 crime stats allows me to update my July 17 report on assaults on police. The A.G. reports 459 assaults on police in 2022, up 24% from the 370 assaults in 2021.
Sioux Falls Police Chief Jon Thum told KELO-TV in July that attacks on his officers were increasing, but in 2022, at least, the Sioux Falls PD saw three fewer assaults than in 2021, a decline of 5% from 59 to 56. But the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office reported a big jump, from 13 in 2021 to 32 in 2022. Add in a couple assaults on Brandon city cops, and Minnehaha County saw 90 assaults on police, up 25% from 72 in 2021.
| County | pop2022 | assaults on police | ap/Kpop 2022 | pop2021 | ap2021 | ap/Kpop2021 |
| Moody | 6,349 | 10 | 1.575 | 6,314 | 4 | 0.634 |
| Pennington | 114,461 | 179 | 1.564 | 111,854 | 133 | 1.189 |
| Brown | 37,972 | 43 | 1.132 | 38,090 | 43 | 1.129 |
| Roberts | 10,163 | 11 | 1.082 | 10,178 | 7 | 0.688 |
| Tripp | 5,565 | 6 | 1.078 | 5,566 | 4 | 0.719 |
| Brule | 5,321 | 5 | 0.940 | 5,254 | 1 | 0.190 |
| Charles Mix | 9,213 | 7 | 0.760 | 9,186 | 4 | 0.435 |
| Meade | 30,698 | 22 | 0.717 | 30,270 | 17 | 0.562 |
| Fall River | 7,370 | 5 | 0.678 | 7,189 | 3 | 0.417 |
| Walworth | 5,265 | 3 | 0.570 | 5,246 | 2 | 0.381 |
| South Dakota | 909,824 | 459 | 0.504 | 896,164 | 370 | 0.413 |
| Marshall | 4,374 | 2 | 0.457 | 4,319 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Hughes | 17,692 | 8 | 0.452 | 17,768 | 1 | 0.056 |
| Minnehaha | 203,971 | 90 | 0.441 | 199,925 | 72 | 0.360 |
| Miner | 2,304 | 1 | 0.434 | 2,329 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Lawrence | 27,214 | 10 | 0.367 | 26,138 | 9 | 0.344 |
| Aurora | 2,755 | 1 | 0.363 | 2,732 | 1 | 0.366 |
| Bennett | 3,336 | 1 | 0.300 | 3,400 | 1 | 0.294 |
| Codington | 28,721 | 8 | 0.279 | 28,467 | 10 | 0.351 |
| Lake | 10,972 | 3 | 0.273 | 10,863 | 1 | 0.092 |
| Clay | 15,280 | 4 | 0.262 | 15,155 | 3 | 0.198 |
| Union | 17,063 | 4 | 0.234 | 16,868 | 4 | 0.237 |
| Deuel | 4,352 | 1 | 0.230 | 4,280 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Beadle | 19,376 | 4 | 0.206 | 19,182 | 2 | 0.104 |
| Davison | 19,973 | 4 | 0.200 | 19,926 | 3 | 0.151 |
| Yankton | 23,373 | 4 | 0.171 | 23,334 | 4 | 0.171 |
| Spink | 6,235 | 1 | 0.160 | 6,273 | 2 | 0.319 |
| Hutchinson | 7,368 | 1 | 0.136 | 7,400 | 4 | 0.541 |
| Brookings | 35,484 | 4 | 0.113 | 34,710 | 2 | 0.058 |
| Custer | 9,006 | 1 | 0.111 | 8,635 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Lincoln | 70,987 | 3 | 0.042 | 67,995 | 10 | 0.147 |
| Bon Homme | 7,062 | 0.000 | 7,011 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Buffalo | 1,861 | 0.000 | 1,912 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Butte | 10,774 | 0.000 | 10,530 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Campbell | 1,349 | 0.000 | 1,375 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Clark | 3,912 | 0.000 | 3,867 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Corson | 3,826 | 0.000 | 3,843 | 1 | 0.260 | |
| Day | 5,479 | 0.000 | 5,435 | 1 | 0.184 | |
| Dewey | 5,140 | 0.000 | 5,218 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Douglas | 2,776 | 0.000 | 2,809 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Edmunds | 4,065 | 0.000 | 4,028 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Faulk | 2,126 | 0.000 | 2,126 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Grant | 7,463 | 0.000 | 7,532 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Gregory | 3,962 | 0.000 | 3,952 | 1 | 0.253 | |
| Haakon | 1,826 | 0.000 | 1,834 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Hamlin | 6,352 | 0.000 | 6,263 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Hand | 3,140 | 0.000 | 3,095 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Hanson | 3,461 | 0.000 | 3,496 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Harding | 1,330 | 0.000 | 1,320 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Hyde | 1,184 | 0.000 | 1,215 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Jackson | 2,821 | 0.000 | 2,846 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Jerauld | 1,650 | 0.000 | 1,640 | 1 | 0.610 | |
| Jones | 884 | 0.000 | 884 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Kingsbury | 5,294 | 0.000 | 5,201 | 1 | 0.192 | |
| Lyman | 3,692 | 0.000 | 3,753 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| McCook | 5,778 | 0.000 | 5,723 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| McPherson | 2,395 | 0.000 | 2,414 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Mellette | 1,892 | 0.000 | 1,908 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Oglala Lakota | 13,519 | 0.000 | 13,549 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Perkins | 2,804 | 0.000 | 2,823 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Potter | 2,438 | 0.000 | 2,471 | 1 | 0.405 | |
| Sanborn | 2,415 | 0.000 | 2,383 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Stanley | 2,999 | 0.000 | 3,017 | 2 | 0.663 | |
| Sully | 1,471 | 0.000 | 1,471 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Todd | 9,220 | 0.000 | 9,292 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Turner | 8,856 | 0.000 | 8,682 | 0 | 0.000 | |
| Ziebach | 2,395 | 0.000 | 2,400 | 0 | 0.000 |
But Minnehaha County remains below the statewide rate of assaults on police per population. The 459 assaults on police statewide (including 13 assaults on Highway Patrol officers that aren’t assigned to a specific county) represent 0.504 assaults per 1,000 population. Minnehaha County’s incidence of assaults on cops was 0.441 per 1,000 population.
By that metric, the most dangerous county for cops in 2022 was Moody, which vaulted from sixth place in 2021 to first in 2022. Assaults on Flandreau police jumped from 4 to 10, bringing their assault on cop per 1K pop from 0.634 to 1.575. That beat Pennington County, which tried really hard to keep its first-place ranking for danger to cops with 179 assaults on county and city law enforcement, up 35% from 133 in 2021 to 179 in 2022. Brown County maintained the third-meanest streets in the state with 43 assaults on cops, the same number as in 2021, constituting 1.132 assaults on cops per 1K pop.
On the good side, 36 counties reported no roughed-up cops, up from 33 cop-safe counties in 2021.
Note: the 2022 Crime in South Dakota report does not list assaults by police on civilians… suggesting that South Dakota only considers it a crime when civilians beat up cops, not when cops beat up civilians.
Try That in a Small Town
Cops, schmops. Nurses and Doctors have a more dangerous job.
Attacks at U.S. medical centers show why health care is one of the nation’s most violent fields.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/08/07/attacks-at-us-medical-centers-show-why-health-care-is-one-of-the-nations-most-violent-fields
Any type of verbal resistance is also considered an assault.
Staff at Cherokee ioea’s MHI center for the criminally insane are being assaulted regularly because the inmates prefer incarceration in the state pen as opposed to where they are. Assaults are way up and more staff is being requested.
Any assault on another person is detestable. But as cibvet points out, perhaps the stats on assaults on SD cops might be a bit misleading, as there may be a tendency to charge an assault in arrests and other police ncounters that would never be charged in an encounter between two non-law enforcement people. Verbal resistance, or the slightest attempt to defend against rough or violent police behavior, can easily be magically transformed into the criminal offense of assaulting an officer. These type of enhancements are a useful bargining chip for prosecutors in criminal cases and civil defense attorneys in civil actions against the government alleging cops used unreasonable force in an encounter.
If you open your door to cops and one sticks a foot onto the doorsill and you gently close the door and touch his foot, cops can arrest you for assault and barge into your house w/o a warrant to arret you. Even if they have been told they are trespassing, you can be shatged with assault.
Certainly bad people exist and do bad things. Certainly good to middling folks exist and have a bad day or make a bad decision. Just as certainly some law enforcement officers go errant.
Cop-watchers are now YouTube celebrities because department internal affairs and state police certifying agencies are failing – miserably.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/07/cop-watchers-auditors-you-tube-police/
Being a law enforcement officer is a tough job. It ought require a masters degree and an 18 month supervised internship. Instead the US throws folks into the oven with little more than several weeks of training.