FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke to "60 Minutes" on Sunday about the surge in attacks against law enforcement officers, noting that the murder rate of police officers rose 59 percent last year, with the country seeing 73 officer deaths from attacks.
"Violence against law enforcement in this country is one of the biggest phenomena that I think doesn't get enough attention," Wray said.
That means a police officer is being murdered nearly “one every five days,” he added.
While some of the increase follows nationwide violent crime trends, the targeting of law enforcement officials is alarming, Wray said.
“One of the phenomena that we saw in the last year is that an alarming percentage of the 73 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty last year were killed through things like being ambushed or shot while out on patrol,” Wray explained. “Wearing the badge shouldn't make you a target.”
He also addressed the spike in crime in major U.S. cities.
"Certainly the pandemic didn't help. There's a variety of ways in which that's contributed to it. We're seeing more and more juveniles committing violent crime, and that's certainly an issue. We're seeing a certain amount of gun trafficking, interstate gun trafficking. That's part of it. And we're seeing an alarming frequency of some of the worst of the worst getting back out on the streets," Wray said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray says a combination of factors, including the pandemic and gun trafficking, have contributed to a rise in violent crime in the U.S.
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) April 25, 2022
He also told @60Minutes that violence against law enforcement "doesn't get enough attention." pic.twitter.com/dzIVSg99ta
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