The average Honda Pilot SUV weighs 4,000 pounds and has a horsepower of around 280. At 20 mph if the vehicle is coasting in neutral it will take at least 60 seconds to come to a stop on its own. If in automatic drive it will never stop unless something blocks it; at most it will slow to around 4 mph due to idle creep, a term for the default speed an automatic transmission car will go just because it is in drive.
Following Executive Order 14074 in February 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) updated its use of force policy to align with the Department of Justice (DOJ) standards. However, there are operational difference between the two departmentsâ policies.
Under current DHS Policy, officers are prohibited from firing at the operator of a moving vehicle unless deadly force is justified under standard objective reasonableness (imminent threat of death or serious injury). DHS policy requires officers to consider the hazards posed to bystanders by an out-of-control conveyance before firing.
DOJ, however, instructs its officers that they may not fire at a moving vehicle unless a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or others with deadly force by means other than the vehicle, or the vehicle itself is operated in a manner that âthreatens death or serious injury and no other objectively reasonable defense exists.â Crucially, the DOJ policy explicitly mandates that reasonable means of defense âincludes moving out of the path of the vehicle.â
While the use of deadly force standards are similar, DOJ explicitly codifies the tactic of âmoving out of the path of the vehicleâ as a required alternative to shooting, whereas DHS focuses on the risk assessment of the uncontrolled vehicle. Which is the more reasonable one?
To understand the divergence, I think we can analyze the DOJ policy as the rules for a civilian police force that is correctly oriented and organized around operating in city streets. One that understands that shooting at cars or firing warning shots endangers bystanders and creates chaos. The DHS policy adopts those same strict civilian rules for land-based enforcement but layers on military-style rules of engagement for its air and sea components, where âdisabling fireâ (shooting out an engine) or âwarning shotsâ (firing across a bow) may be necessary tools to stop smugglers or threats in open water or airspace where bystanders are rare. The attitude of DHS may be impacted by its quasi-military view of its operations, a view that is unsuited for internal operations in the United States of America.
Referring back to the facts of the case, I judge reasonableness by the likelihood to resolve the issue. If I do X and my goal is Y, is it reasonable to believe X will accomplish Y? Given the timing and proximity, if Renee Good was actually trying to ram the ICE officer who killed her, he would have still been run over and would not have walked away. If you shoot the driver of an SUV accelerating at you from a few feet away the SUV is not stopping. In the real world, not Hollywood, shooting the driver is not going to make the wheels turn away from you if the driver is turning into you. Shooting them will not make their foot leap from the gas pedal to the brakes.
Consider syncope. It is exceedingly dangerous when a person suffers syncope, or fainting, while they are driving. It is unpredictable. If the driverâs leg is extended and their heel is planted on the floor, the loss of muscle control can make their leg limp and heavy. Then gravity does its thing and this will make them press down on the pedal aka flooring it. If they were turning one direction, they may turn the other direction or straighten out but this will take a few moments because the centrifugal force will take time to move their hands and arms in the direction the body leans, and that is if they were leaning into the turn, otherwise it will take longer. Either way, it will take longer than the distance between Renee Good and ICE allowed for.
Someone might argue that âthe shooting does not stop the car instantly, but it stops the driver from steering it back toward the officer.â This is a claim that would matter only if there was more distance to make the turn back into the officerâwhich there was notâand only if the driver was in the process of making such a turn and had not already done so. None of that applies in this case. Shooting trades a potential threat for a guaranteed one: a dead driver cannot correct course; they become a body in an uncontrolled weapon.
Consider also the active behavior of the driver regarding the agents. Renee Good was responding to ICE agents coming from her left. If her intent was to attack and weaponize her vehicle she would have turned left directly into the primary threat or target. Instead, she turned right. This is consistent with evasion and flight, not attack and fight. Right was the pathway of escape. Furthermore, an agent coming from her right continuing to move in front of a vehicle that is reversing and then pulling forward is tactically unsound because the agent puts themself in the vehicleâs path. If the agent was indeed âbumpedâ or struck, it was the result of stepping into a narrowing gap during a turn, not the result of a targeted attack. Additionally, the agents had the license plate of the vehicle and could follow up with local, state, and federal law enforcement to question or arrest Renee Good if warranted.
Given these facts, was shooting the driver of the vehicle a reasonable response to the belief they were attempting to hit you with their vehicle from a distance of around a yard? No. It was not reasonable, the DOJ policy of getting out of the way was the only reasonable action for agents from any agency to take. Shooting the driver would not save you because it would not stop the SUV and, if anything, would make it hit you faster. Then consider what actually happened:
Renee Good did not run over the ICE agent.
Renee Goodâs vehicle did accelerate after previously moving slowly.
Renee Goodâs vehicle only stopped after it crashed into another civilian vehicle that thankfully was unoccupied.
The shooting of Renee Good was unreasonable because it would not have solved the issue if she was in fact trying to run over ICE agents, and it put others at risk with no means of mitigating that risk. Further, her crash trajectory was to the right which is where she had turned the vehicle before she was shot.
