Twelve. That's the number of police and metro police officers who have been shot, stabbed or petrol-bombed in the past 10 days. Of that number six have died.Since the beginning of this year, the number of police officers killed stands at 53 - 25 officers were on duty and 28 were off duty at the time of their deaths. This is six more than were killed last year over the same period.Since April 1 2015, 14 suspects have been arrested in connection with the murder of police officers.The number of convictions in connection with the murders of law-enforcement officers this year is unknown. A void in public information.A number of issues plague our police services.National police commissioner Riah Phiyega is in a battle to save her job as calls for her to step down grow.Police officers driving unarmoured vehicles into crime hot spots without having the necessary crime intelligence to inform their movements appear outgunned by the criminals they pursue.Information from the last three police annual reports shows that the number of intelligence reports (which inform police operations) produced by crime intelligence agents at police stations has plummeted by 49%.Officers' weapons training, according to industry experts, is weak and does not conform to industry standards and the failure rate on police street-survival courses is high.Trainers speak of the dismal failure rates, saying that, legally, they are meant to remove weapons from those who fail, but cannot do so "because, if we do, the police service will cease to exist".This is all worrying, and more so if the driving force behind the high number of cop deaths is linked to the fact that no conviction numbers are known, because what then do criminals have to fear for gunning down a cop?Nothing...