The rise in the number of police officers killed in the U.S. could be related to drug gangs operating in the United States. “I would expect that the good debt of [police deaths] would be related to drug gangs,” Jim W. Dean, a managing editor and columnist at Veterans Today told Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Tuesday. According to statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a rising number of police officers are being killed in the United States. Last year, 72 officers were killed by perpetrators, a 25 per cent increase from the previous year and a 75 per cent increase from 2008.