On the Job 

On the eve of the Ohio Peace Officers’ Memorial Ceremony, deputies, officers and troopers gathered on May 6 at the Statehouse for an event to recognize a training initiative to reduce law enforcement line-of-duty deaths nationwide to less than 100.

The Below 100 campaign reminds officers to mind their personal safety.

Since last August, officers throughout Ohio have been receiving the training.

Capt. Dennis Valone of the Alpharetta (Ga.) Police Department is a core instructor and incoming chairman for Below 100. The program, he said, started in 2011 when a group of law enforcement trainers became concerned about the grim statistics.

“We started looking at the numbers, and surprisingly, we’ve had over 100 law enforcement officers killed in this country every year since 1943,” he said. “And then, we started looking at why they were killed: traffic crashes, not wearing their seat belts, speed, not wearing body armor, complacency. We can reduce that number to well below 100. We can cut out 30 to 40 deaths per year.”

The program is already making a difference, Valone said.

“If you go back 10 years, we were averaging 170 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty every single year,” he said. “Since Below 100 has been implemented, in the last three years, we’ve averaged 125.”

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine reiterated his support for more training for law enforcement.

“Police officers who die in the line of duty die for principally two reasons: They are in auto accidents or they are shot. And if we can give law enforcement officers more training and more focus on how to protect themselves, we need to do that. Our prayer is for zero.”

Westerville Police Chief Joseph Morbitzer, president of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, called the program “absolutely the best initiative in law enforcement I’ve come across in 33 years.”

The goal, he said, is to put every officer in Ohio through the course.

Staff Lt. Morris L. Hill Jr. of the Ohio State Highway Patrol has been through the Below 100 training and calls it “practical stuff.”

“It’s a matter of living it out,” he said.