Police on High Alert over Potential Copycat Attacks

Police officers are on high alert as 2015 begins. They're on the lookout for people not wanting to harm others, but them.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said crimes against officers is up and are warning officers from coast to coast to be on guard.

They are being targeted and threatened after nationwide anger following the deaths of unarmed black men in New York and Ferguson, Missouri.

The FBI put out the alert after receiving more threats from copycats of the New York Police Department officer assasinations last month.

The federal law enforcement agency says the NYPD has received up to 80 threats during the last week. Officers have arrested 15 people so far following the threats against fellow officers' lives.

Threats are also happening in other parts of the nation. In Houston, random shots were fired at an officer at a traffic stop.

Police from Los Angeles to Tampa, Florida, to Philadelphia have also found themselves under attack.

An annual report found that police shooting deaths were up 56 percent last year. Of the 50 officers killed last year, 15 of them were killed in ambush attacks.