Two relatively recent police shootings highlight the importance of strict administrative policies governing if/when officers can shoot at moving motor vehicles.
The first shooting event occurred on August 27, 2021 in Sharon Hill Borough, which is a Delaware County suburb of Philadelphia. Two teenagers - Angelo Ford and Hasein Strand - engaged in a gunfight at a high school football game. Three Sharon Hill police officers opened fire on a vehicle that they (mistakenly) believed was involved in the original shooting. The police gunfire struck and killed an innocent eight-year-old girl named Fanta Bility, and three others were were wounded including Fanta’s older sister. Over the past few weeks, this case has received more local Philadelphia media attention when it was learned that 1) it was police gunfire that killed Fanta, and 2) Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse charged the two teens with murder in Fanta’s death. Vinny Vella at The Philadelphia Inquirer has done an excellent job writing about the case. You can read more about it here and here.
The second shooting took place on Sunday, November 21, 2021 during a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. A driver, Darrell Brooks Jr., drove his SUV into the parade route, which killed 6 and injured dozens more. One officer opened fire on the SUV, but eventually stopped because of the danger that the gunfire posed to others (according to the police chief). More info about the incident can be found here.
Both shootings highlight why departmental policy should be written in a way that provides officers with guidance in determining whether they should use their firearms in situations with motor vehicles. Here’s what we know:
A few big-city police departments provide explicit language that bans/prohibits officers from shooting at motor vehicles. When they do, most also provide for rare exceptions in which officers can still shoot within policy - such as whether the driver is using the vehicle as a weapon of mass destruction (e.g., apparent terrorist attack; Nice, France truck attack in 2016) or when an officer is being carried/dragged by the vehicle, cannot disengage, and there is a fear of imminent death or serious body injury from being carried/dragged.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) was the first to write such language into their deadly force policy in August 1972.
A number of professional law enforcement organizations have provided “model” policy language in recent years. They include the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in 2016 and a national consensus of 11 leadership organizations (e.g., International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives) in 2017 and revised in 2020.
PERF’s “Guiding Principles”
11 organizations’ “national consensus policy”
The prevailing rationale behind such prohibitions includes some combination of 1) it is more dangerous to take into account what lies beyond the moving vehicle (e.g., innocent people), 2) firing into moving vehicles may have little impact on stopping the vehicle, and/or 3) disabling/incapacitating the driver may result in an uncontrolled vehicle, which could increase the likelihood of injury or death to other passengers as well as other motorists/pedestrians.
Here are few examples of agencies’ policies:
Dallas, TX Police Department
Denver, CO Police Department
New Jersey Attorney General’s Directive 2020-13, which goes into effect statewide on December 31, 2021.
According to data from The Washington Post, 4-5% of all fatal police shootings of people between 1/1/2015 and 8/14/2021 (n = 249) were classified as “motor vehicle” being the weapon used.
*Here’s what we don’t know (it’s a lot):
How many/what percentage of police agencies have policies that prohibit shooting at motor vehicles.
Whether the Sharon Hill Borough Police Department had similar prohibitions in their deadly force/firearms policy.
We need more attention paid to such policies and whether they reduce/narrow officer discretion and, thus, limit these specific occasions when police shoot. We cannot reduce all police shootings of citizens, especially in those circumstances when people are threatening officers with firearms. However, addressing police shootings at motor vehicles presents one of the few tangible areas where progress can be made (in my opinion).