Law officers are not restricted to justifying each and every shot they fire the way civilians tend to be:
One of the dumbest arguments being advanced in social media and elsewhere is the effort to distinguish between the ICE Officer’s first shot through the front windshield — presumably while he was still in front of the vehicle and at risk of being run into — and later shots that were fired by him through the driver’s side window after he was no longer immediately threatened.
Besides this being a 20-20 hindsight analysis that runs contrary to Graham v. Connor, it also ignores a more recent 9-0 decision by the Supreme Court involving the use of deadly force against the driver of a vehicle.
Plumhoff v. Rickart — 2014, with Justice Alito writing for a unanimous court:
Following a car-stop of a suspected drunk driver, and after just a few questions posed by the officer, the driver sped away. The officer gave chase and was eventually joined by five other cars. The chase lasted more than 5 minutes, and at times exceeded 100 mph.
The chase eventually ended in a parking lot where the suspect’s car collided with a police vehicle, and other vehicles made an effort to pin in the suspect’s car in — the high speed chase portion was over. But that wasn’t the end of the suspect’s efforts to flee:
Now in danger of being cornered, Rickard put his car into reverse “in an attempt to escape.” As he did so, Evans and Plumhoff got out of their cruisers and … Evans, gun in hand, pounded on the passenger-side window…. Rickard’s tires started spinning, and his car “was rocking back and forth,” indicating that Rickard was using the accelerator even though his bumper was flush against a police cruiser. At that point, Plumhoff fired three shots into Rickard’s car. Rickard then “reversed in a 180 degree arc” and “maneuvered onto” another street, forcing Ellis to “step to his right to avoid the vehicle.” Ibid. As Rickard continued “fleeing down” that street, ibid., Gardner and Galtelli fired 12 shots toward Rickard’s car, bringing the total number of shots fired during this incident to 15. Rickard then lost control of the car and crashed into a building.
The comments I’ve seen on social media suggest there is case law that says each round fired must be independently justified as “reasonable.” They make this claim based on the premise that the shot fired through the front windshield must be evaluated separately from the shots fired though the passenger window, and if either are “unreasonable” then the ICE officer committed a crime. That’s just nonsense and I’d like to see anyone post in the comments a citation to a case saying that is the law.
As always, the “I’m not a lawyer crowd, but…” is extrapolating from what they think they know in order to reach a conclusion that is directly contradictory to the law. Once a police officer, or an ICE officer, or a federal officer, is justified in firing his weapon, he doesn’t face the same potential ramifications for firing subsequent shots that civilians do when acting in self-defense.
So, yes, if you finish off a wounded home invader with a double-tap as he’s desperately trying to crawl away from your house, you almost certainly will find yourself facing some serious charges. But if you’re an ICE officer who fires four, or ten, or fifty more shots after the first one, all that really matters is if the first one is justifiable or not.
Personally, I’d prefer to see the civilian standard relaxed to meet the officer’s standard. What is the societal benefit to protecting criminals who have already conclusively established that their elimination was legal and justifiable, simply because the civilian didn’t shoot quite straight enough the first time?