Police shooting at vehicles under scrutiny

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — Many police departments across the U.S. strictly limit officers’ shooting at moving vehicles because they consider the practice ineffective and not worth the risk to human life.

But dozens of shootings still occur each year — with deadly results — because many departments continue to give officers too much leeway to open fire, according to groups advocating for stricter policies.

Police-reform advocates say officers should fire only if deadly force other than the vehicle is being used or to stop terrorism. And while not all law enforcement experts agree, the issue is among many practices that are being scrutinized amid nationwide calls for police reform and racial justice sparked by George Floyd’s death in police custody last year.

Last month, sheriff’s deputies fatally shot an unarmed Black man in his car as he appeared to drive away in Elizabeth City, N.C. The deputies were cleared Tuesday by a prosecutor who said Andrew Brown Jr. was using his BMW as a “deadly weapon.”

The body camera footage shows six Pasquotank County sheriff ’ s deputies surrounding Brown’s car with guns drawn while serving drug-related warrants at his Elizabeth City home.

The video shows one of the deputies putting his hand on the driver’s side door, then yelling and recoiling as Brown backs up. Seconds later, the same deputy appears to be in the path of the car as Brown moves forward.

The deputy avoids a direct hit after pushing his hand onto the moving car’s hood and quickly moving aside. Gunshots are then heard, and officers appear to continue firing as the car moves away from them. Brown was killed by a bullet in the back of his head.

District Attorney Andrew Womble, who showed the footage at a news conference, said the shooting was justified.

“When you employ a car in a manner that puts officers’ lives in danger, that is a threat,” Womble said. “And I don’t care what direction you’re going — forward, backward, sideways. I don’t care if you’re stationary. And neither do our courts and our case law.”

Some law enforcement experts say firing at moving vehicles should be avoided.

“Unless someone in the car is shooting at police officers, you can get that car another day — but you cannot get that life back,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit, independent group that studies policing issues.

The Pasquotank County sheriff’s use-of-force policy says deputies should move out of a car’s path instead of shooting at it, “when feasible.” The policy also states that a deputy should fire only when the officer “reasonably believes there are no other reasonable means available.”

Wexler said such a policy gives too much leeway to deputies to put themselves in danger — and to open fire. The rules, he said, have to be “very restrictive and accompanied by training.”

In a 2016 report, the Police Executive Research Forum called for strict limits on firing at vehicles unless other force is being used. It cited a reduction in lethal force cases resulting from New York City’s policy.

Shootings by the city’s police declined from nearly 1,000 a year in 1972 to 665 the following year, “and have fallen steadily ever since, to fewer than 100 per year today,” the report stated.

New York City changed its policy in 1972 after an officer shot an 11-year-old boy who was fleeing in a stolen car. Denver made a similar change after a 17-year-old girl was fatally shot as she drove a stolen vehicle toward an officer in 2015.

Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and co-founder of advocacy group Campaign Zero, said 55 people were killed by police last year in situations where moving vehicles were the only alleged threats.

“Every single year, we’re tracking 50, 60, 70 people who are being killed by the police in these situations,” Sinyangwe said.