Americans Believe Police Protect and Serve

Most Americans are strongly convinced that their local police protect and serve and give them high marks for their jobs, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday.

The poll found 67 percent of American adults see the average police officer as a protector, while only 11 percent view the average police officer as a threat.

Most Americans also feel their police officers have either a "good" or "excellent" job performance, with a combined 67 percent of respondents rating their local police officers in such a way. Twenty-two percent rated the performance of their local police officers as "fair" and only 9 percent of Americans rate the performance of the police in their area as poor.

When it comes to deaths involving police officers, very few Americans -- 13 percent -- believe the deaths are the fault of the police officer. A much larger amount -- 53 percent -- believe the deaths are the fault of the suspect.

The survey of 1,000 American adults was conducted Dec. 4-5 by Rasmussen Reports.