For four out of the last five years members of the Halifax Regional Police have been assaulted at a higher rate than in any other city in Atlantic Canada.

This is according to an analysis of crime data obtained from Statistics Canada.

From 2010 to 2014, the year with the most recent available data, Halifax has averaged a rate of 48 assaults on police officers per 100,000 people in its population. St. John’s, the next highest city in the Atlantic Provinces, averaged 44.

But that figure doesn’t tell the whole story.

While St. John’s rate of 83 assaults in 2010 was the highest in the region; five years later their rate of assaults fell to 29.

This is similar to the way that rates of assaults on police officers have dropped throughout Atlantic Canada. However, since 2010, Halifax’s has remained relatively the same.

As a result, from 2010 to 2014 Halifax has had a total of 979 incidents where police were assaulted. Over twice the amount that St. John’s had at 440.

In an emailed statement Constable Dianne Woodworth, a spokesperson for the Halifax Regional Police, wrote that the force would not issue a comment on assaults committed against their police officers.

“We cannot speak to why these assaults are happening as this would be a case by case basis, nor the data on rates of assaults in comparison to other regions,” Woodworth said.

According to Criminal Code of Canada, the charge of assaulting a peace officer carries with it a sentence of up to five years in prison.

When compared to the rate of assault on peace officers across Canada, Halifax officers are still more likely to be assaulted while in the line of duty.

Halifax officers are still more likely to be assaulted while in the line of duty.

In 2011, officers in the HRM were 41 per cent more likely to be assaulted when compared to the rate of officers across Canada.

The year after, the number dropped to 32 per cent.

According to the two years of available data, since then, Halifax hasn’t dropped below that figure.

Staff Sargent Penny Hart, an instructor at the Halifax Regional Police Training Centre, said that members of her police force are not specifically trained to deal with being assaulted.

“Training is an ongoing thing, we don’t have specific days or X number of hours,” Hart said.”But every single member within the police organization will attend mandatory training every year.”

Hart says that the Halifax Regional Police asses and modify their training if they see new trends or events in the world.

She used the example of multiple attacks occurring at one time as an example of events they’ve incorporated into their training.

While the last five years indicate that Halifax stands out in the Atlantic region for assaults on police officers, the crime statistics for 2015 weren’t currently available for analysis.

According to a representative of Statistics Canada those figures won’t be released until later this year.