Is it war on police or genocide on police?

It's a fair question: Are we witnessing a war against police or an act of genocide against police?

I know what you're thinking. Genocide refers to killing people of a certain ethnicity not a particular profession, right? Well, not really.

If you've met many police officers, you should recognize that being a cop is not just a job, it's a calling that is a part of a lawman's DNA. Don't believe me? Talk to any retired police officer and tell me he or she is not still a cop at a cellular level. As a longtime former cop myself, I can tell you that it is certainly an ethnicity – you're born with blue blood coursing through your veins and it stays that color until you die.

But, even if you don't think homo copien is a distinct ethnicity, many lexicographers recognize that genocide isn't confined to ethnicity alone, including the Oxford Dictionary, which defines genocide as, "The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group."

What we're seeing now is quite deliberate. And the numbers are quite large.

Although I was one of the first police commentators in the country to use the term "the war on police" to refer to Ferguson and its aftermath in my writings and in interviews on CNN and Fox, I always had the thought in the back of my mind that it may be something more insidious than that. Even though I named the book I wrote about what happened in Ferguson and other cities rocked by high-profile police encounters "The War on Police," when talking about the post-Ferguson world, I frequently used a term I invented, "constabulicide," to describe the urge to kill police that was motivated by the hate speech inspired by the "hands up, don't shoot" myth.

Genocide, constabulicide, the great blue massacre … whatever term you choose to use, you should consider – strongly – the possibility that what we're witnessing now has escalated into something beyond just a war on police. If Dallas, Baton Rouge and Palm Springs didn't convince you of that, the eight police officers that have died in a recent eight-day span should. The ambush-style execution of police has become a common occurrence in 2016, and now the cowardly assassination of the two Des Moines area police officers on Nov. 2 culminated a bloody spree of anti-police violence that took the life of an average of one American hero in blue per day starting on Oct. 26.

With the Des Moines ambush, police officer deaths in 2016 are up more than 10 percent over the same period in 2015. The more stunning statistic is the "deliberate killing of this large group of people." Year-to-date killed-by-gunfire murders of police officers have increased by over 50 percent as of Nov. 2, 2016. But that's when you compare 2016 to 2015, another deadly year for cops. To truly put it into perspective, we should look back to 2013, the year before Ferguson and Baltimore kicked off the war on police in much the same way Concord and Lexington sparked the Revolutionary War.

In 2013, there were 33 cops killed by gunfire. We were barely halfway through 2016 when we matched that number. Counting the two officers gunned down in Iowa, we've had 51 officers killed by firearms in 2016. At that pace, we will reach 61 officers killed by gunfire by year's end. That's an astronomical 85 percent increase from 2013, the last pre-war, pre-genocide year.

Now, Black Lives Matter would have you believe that the real genocide is being carried out against young black men by police, but we know from investigative findings – findings that include numerous DOJ probes – that somewhere between 98 and 99 percent of the time, police officers are exonerated of any wrongdoing when they use deadly force. That is to say, at least 98 percent of those incidents are actually cases of someone trying to kill or seriously injure a police officer. More evidence yet that genocide against police is a very real phenomenon is the fact that the instances of police deploying deadly force in self-defense have risen sharply in the post-Ferguson world. Just to add a skosh more context for those propagandists who want to perpetuate the myth that cops are engaged in a murderous campaign against black youths, about two-thirds of the people killed by cops are white. Those numbers are statistically unchanging whether you're looking at the 98 percent of the time cops get things right or the 2 percent of the time they don't.

Over 50,000 police officers were assaulted in 2015. While that's less than a 1 percent increase over 2013, the fact the number increased at all with the de-policing and law enforcement attrition that has occurred as a result of the Ferguson Effect is astounding. There are far fewer cops doing far less police work across America today, yet assaults against law enforcement have still ticked upward – yet more evidence that there is a genocidal element to the current spate of anti-police violence.

But, as is always the case with genocide, the true measure is the words people use to inspire the level of hatred required to entice the extermination of an entire race – the blue race. I was on the streets of Ferguson and I heard the seething words of hatred that came from the mouths of the antagonists who overthrew an American city. More than just the words, it was the intensity of expression in their faces, the bloodthirstiness in their eyes that defined the new anti-police anarchism that was so prevalent on the streets of Ferguson, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Charlotte and dozens of other great American cities.

This mob mentality that has spread like cancer across America and has soaked our streets in blue blood should be recognized for the genocidal movement that it is. To write it off as anything else imperils the lives of even more cops and the very fabric of our democracy.

The demonizing of police: How far will it go? Get Jeff Roorda's cop's-eye view of the current climate against law enforcement with "The War on Police: How the Ferguson Effect is Making America Unsafe"