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The fatal shooting of a woman by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday has thrust a long-running and deeply contested question back into the national spotlight: When is a law enforcement officer justified in using lethal force against someone in a moving vehicle?
The killing, captured on cellphone video, has exposed sharp divisions between federal authorities and local officials. It has also renewed scrutiny of use-of-force rules that many police departments adopted decades ago to reduce the risk of bystanders being shot or drivers losing control after being hit by gunfire. While federal officials quickly defended the agent’s actions, local leaders called the shooting unjustified.
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At the center of the debate are policies that for years have sharply limited when officers may fire at vehicles, generally barring gunfire at fleeing cars unless the driver poses an imminent threat of deadly force beyond the vehicle itself. Those restrictions, embraced by many large police departments and reflected in federal guidance, were intended to curb what experts long warned was one of the most dangerous and unpredictable uses of lethal force.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the episode as an “act of domestic terrorism” and said the agent acted in self-defence and to protect fellow officers.
Here’s a look at how and why police agencies moved to restrict shootings at moving vehicles, what those policies typically require, how they are enforced, and how recent incidents, including the Minneapolis case, have tested the limits of rules meant to balance officer safety with public risk.
Why many police agencies limit shooting at moving vehicles
For decades, police departments across the U.S. have limited when officers are allowed to fire at moving vehicles, citing the danger to bystanders and the risk that a driver who is shot will lose control.
The New York City Police Department was among the first major agencies to adopt those limits. The department barred officers from firing at or from moving vehicles after a 1972 shooting killed a 10-year-old passenger in a stolen car and sparked protests.
Researchers in the late 1970s and early 1980s later found that the policy, along with other use-of-force restrictions, helped reduce bystanders being struck by police gunfire and led to fewer deaths in police shootings.
Over the years, many law enforcement agencies followed New York’s lead. Policing organizations such as the Police Executive Research Forum and the International Association of Chiefs of Police have recommended similar limits, warning that shooting at vehicles creates serious risks from stray gunfire or from a vehicle crashing if the driver is hit.
In Wednesday’s shooting, the vehicle can be seen in videos continuing to move down the street before crashing into two other vehicles and coming to a stop. It was unclear from the video if the vehicle made contact with the officer before he steps to the side.
What federal policy says about shooting at vehicles
Federal law enforcement officers operate under similar guidance.
The Department of Justice says in its Justice Manual that firearms should not be used simply to disable a moving vehicle. The policy allows deadly force only in limited circumstances, such as when someone in the vehicle is threatening another person with deadly force, or when the vehicle itself is being used in a way that poses an imminent risk and no reasonable alternative exists, including moving out of the vehicle’s path.
At a news conference Wednesday evening, Noem said any death is a tragedy, but that the shooting was justified.
“Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he’s been taught to do in that situation, and took actions to defend himself and defend his fellow law enforcement officers,” Noem said.
She alleged that the woman who was killed was trying to block officers with her vehicle, had been harassing them throughout the day and “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over” before she was shot. The FBI is leading the investigation into the shooting, she said.
Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, said officials should take a step back before making any pronouncements.
“There needs to be two thorough parallel investigations,” he said. “First, ICE officials should investigate administratively whether this agent violated policy or training. And then state officials should be conducting a thorough criminal investigation as well.”
He said determining whether the use-of-force was justified or criminal is going to depend on many details that have not been disclosed publicly. But he raised concerns about whether the initiating incident was a traffic-related issue, and whether the federal agents had the authority and training to handle that kind of interaction with the general public.
“Local police are trained to de-escalate in those kinds of situations, and I have questions about who this person was, was she known to them, why did one of the officers rush the car and yell. There are still a lot of questions,” Alpert said.
The rise in fatal encounters with federal agents
The shooting of the woman, identified by family members as Renee Nicole Good, 37, occurred as Homeland Security escalates immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota by deploying 2,000 agents and officers. It’s just the latest in a growing number of violent encounters between ICE agents and community members, and at least the fifth fatality.
In October, a Chicago woman was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in a similar incident involving a vehicle. Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old teaching assistant at a Montessori school, survived and was almost immediately labelled a “domestic terrorist” by Homeland Security officials, who said in media releases that she had “ambushed” and “rammed” agents with her vehicle.
She was charged with assaulting a federal officer, but federal prosecutors were later forced to dismiss the case after security camera video and body camera footage emerged showing a Border Patrol agent steering his vehicle into Martinez’s truck.
What training experts say about moving vehicle policies
The debate over shooting at moving vehicles has been sharpened by high-profile cases, including a 2023 shooting in Ohio in which an officer fired through the windshield of a car in a grocery store parking lot while investigating a shoplifting allegation. The pregnant driver was killed; the officer was later charged and acquitted.
John P. Gross, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law who has written extensively about officers shooting at moving vehicles, said while more departments have added explicit policies regarding use-of-force and moving vehicles, officer training also needs to improve.
“If this woman was blocking the street and a law enforcement operation, they are entitled to arrest her. What they are not entitled to do is to use deadly force to arrest her,” Gross said. “From just watching the video, this seems like an egregious example.”
He said officers need to consider the totality of a situation, the crime or allegation being made against someone, whether they can be found at a later date or whether they are an actual danger.
“From the video, the officer seems to fire as she’s moving past him. At that point, she’s not a threat, so why fire?” he said.
