Border Patrol Given New Deadly Force Guidelines After Report Shows Officers Created Dangerous Situations To Justify Opening Fire
from the bringing-a-gun-to-a-rock-fight dept
The US Border Patrol has handed down new guidelines for use of deadly force after its agents killed 19 people in 67 shooting incidents between 2010-2012.
The U.S. Border Patrol has restricted border agents' authority to shoot at moving vehicles or at people throwing rocks, changing a controversial policy that has contributed to at least 19 deaths since 2010…Why did the CBP open fire on so many people? Well, it's because agents feared for their safety. Why did they fear for their safety? Because they put themselves deliberately in that position, according to a report commissioned by the CBP and written by law enforcement experts.
The new rules would bring the Border Patrol's practices closer to those used routinely by the nation's major urban police departments. They are a response, in part, to widespread complaints from immigrant advocates that border agents have shot and killed people in some cases when deadly force was not necessary to protect the lives of agents or the public.
House and Senate oversight committees requested copies last fall but received only a summary that omitted the most controversial findings — that some border agents stood in front of moving vehicles as a pretext to open fire and that agents could have moved away from rock throwers instead of shooting at them…Judging from this, one would almost believe certain CBP agents were just looking for excuses to shoot someone. And the CBP agents' response has been to claim that new guidelines -- telling them not to stand in front of escaping vehicles and to move away from rock-throwing individuals -- will somehow make the job more dangerous.
"It is suspected that in many vehicle shooting cases, the subject driver was attempting to flee from the agents who intentionally put themselves into the exit path of the vehicle, thereby exposing themselves to additional risk and creating justification for the use of deadly force," the report reads. In some cases, "passengers were struck by agents' gunfire."
The response, marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," states that a ban on shooting at rock throwers "could create a more dangerous environment" because many agents operate "in rural or desolate areas, often alone, where concealment, cover and egress is not an option."The authors of the report had this to say in response to the CBP's speculative assertion (spearheaded by CBP union reps, who have stated that they will "oppose any restriction on CBP officers' use of force").
If drug smugglers knew border agents were not allowed to shoot at their vehicles, it argues, more drivers would try to run over agents.
"It should be recognized that a half-ounce (200-grain) bullet is unlikely to stop a 4,000-pound moving vehicle, and if the driver … is disabled by a bullet, the vehicle will become a totally unguided threat," it says. "Obviously, shooting at a moving vehicle can pose a risk to bystanders including other agents."So, while the new guidance lays out some common sense rules in hopes of decreasing the number of deadly shootings, some feel it still doesn't go far enough. The ACLU is recommending the use of body cameras to ensure each use of force is properly documented. Zoe Lofgren has called for more transparency from the agency itself, which has still refused to reveal how many officers (if any) received any sort of disciplinary action for inappropriate use of force.
The CBP obviously has transparency issues. Every effort was made to prevent this report from being made public, despite the CBP itself commissioning it. And, as we've covered earlier, the CBP has obscured the use of its drone "lending library" by failing to produce documents and heavily redacting those it did turn over in response to FOIA requests.
It's one thing for these agents to defend themselves against deadly force. It's quite another to put yourself in harm's way simply to justify the use of deadly force (the it's-coming-right-for-us loophole). If the agency is truly seeking to rid itself of its trigger-happy reputation, it needs to enforce these guidelines and open up its use of force track record to public scrutiny.
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Filed Under: aclu, border patrol, cbp, zoe lofgren
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Stand your ground laws...
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The Los Angeles Times reported last week that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had commissioned law enforcement experts to review 67 shooting incidents that left 19 people dead along the U.S.-Mexico border from January 2010 to October 2012, but then had rejected the group's recommendations to crack down on shooting at vehicles and rock throwers.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-border-shootings-20140308,0,630084.story#ixzz2vasD4owb
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Seriously? You invite outside agencies to investigate the shootings/deaths and then reject the findings that are discovered? WOW. That takes some big balls.
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Bullets vs. cars
...which is why aiming for the driver is a bad idea. Shooting out the tires or the engine block, on the other hand, provides an immense force multiplier to that half-ounce bullet, making it much more likely to bring the vehicle to a stop, or at the very least to a pace that makes it incapable of escaping agents in undamaged vehicles.
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Re: Bullets vs. cars
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Re: Re: Bullets vs. cars
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Re: Re: Bullets vs. cars
Don't give them ideas.
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Re: Bullets vs. cars
> out the tires or the engine block
Shooting tires out on a moving vehicle with a handgun only works in Hollywood movies. And nothing short of a rifled slug or a .50 cal is going to penetrate an engine block.
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Re: Re: Bullets vs. cars
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Re: Bullets vs. cars
Also, shooting an engine block with a pistol round is going to do absolutely nothing. If you get lucky and hit the radiator, maybe it'll overheat in an hour or two. When soldiers shut down a car at a roadblock, they use a 50 caliber machine gun with a bullet that has literally 30 times (or more) energy than a pistol round. Take a look at this:
http://i534.photobucket.com/albums/ee343/jonconsiglio/Forums/IMG_8362.jpg
On the left is a typical 9mm pistol round. On the right is a 50 bmg.
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Which leads to the conclusions, the agent are trigger happy and the question: how many of the people killed were the ones they were aiming at?.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHvWaviIXsk
You don't point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot and you don't shoot anything you don't intend to kill. Period. If your life is in danger the point is to neutralize the threat. Anything else is stupidity.
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http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/secret-video-reveals-cop-beat-defenseless
It sorta explains how the cop could accurately shoot the target, the target wasn't quickly coming at the cop but was slowly coming to a stop making it an easier target.
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Those dirty rotten liars!
What?? You mean those action movies have been lying all this time? Maybe they should stop using them as training films, then.
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Rocks
How many rocks does an agent have to endure being hurled at him while he's "moving away"?
To those on the committee who advocate this rule, why don't you stand 10 feet from me, let me start whipping rocks at your head, and see how many hits I can score before you "move away" enough that I can't hit you anymore.
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Re: Rocks
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Re: Re: Rocks
Why on earth would you suggest we have to wait until someone is killed before recognizing that it certainly could happen and allow LEOs to act accordingly to protect themselves?
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Re: Re: Re: Rocks
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Rocks
Hmmm, how many hours of 'range' time will it take the average Border Patrol Agent to become proficient with one of those?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Rocks
That's legally non-sensical. If you have the legal justification to use deadly force to defend yourself, then you can use *any* tool available to accomplish that.
If someone's shooting at you while you're in your car, you can use the car as a weapon to defend yourself. If someone breaks into your home a threatens you with a knife, the law doesn't require you to only defend yourself with a knife. You can shoot the guy, you can beat him with a baseball bat, you can throw a jar of acid at him, you can use whatever you have at hand.
And on a more practical note, this new policy basically neuters and renders moot the entire purpose of having border guards in the first place. When the illegals learn that all they have to do to get the Border Patrol to back off is chunk a rock at them-- that the BP is required to run away when that happens-- then every attempted interdiction will result in rock-throwing and retreat by the BP and the illegals will just waltz on in. Might as well just throw open the borders and let anyone wander on in rather than enforce the laws of the U.S. Sounds suspiciously like the exact goals of the open-borders crowd, which is what's probably the driving force behind this idiocy. Can't get open-borders and amnesty legislation passed in Congress? Why not do an end-run around Congress, neuter the Border Patrol, and accomplish the same thing without any political fight?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rocks
Or smack the guy upside the head with a claw hammer. Like this 82-year-old gentleman did when some punk tried to break into his home. Props to Mr. Bradford for his quick reaction.
http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/detroit/82-year-old-man-hits-home-intruder-with-hammer
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Re: Re: Re: Rocks
As someone who has a concealed carry permit, if a kid chucks a rock at me, I don't have the right to then draw my handgun and pump a few rounds into them.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Rocks
> if a kid chucks a rock at me, I don't have the
> right to then draw my handgun and pump a few
> rounds into them.
If a group of kids started hurling lots of rocks at you (which is the situation the border guards often face), you would indeed be justified in using your gun to defend yourself.
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Re: Re: Rocks
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Re: Rocks
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Re: Re: Rocks
> people die from the flu every year.
No, but you should probably go slap your high school English teacher. He/she completely failed you on the subject of analogies.
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There's a difference?
They are a response, in part, to widespread complaints from immigrant advocates that border agents have shot and killed people in some cases when deadly force was not necessary to protect the lives of agents or the public.
Again, there's a difference?
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As taxpayers we have every right to those documents (unredacted). You have no right to prevent the release of documents just because - especially not because - those documents contain information that may embarrass you. In fact that is the exact reason those documents should be released. RELEASE THE DOCUMENTS!!!!
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WTF has happened to America's police over the past decade or so? It's like they've all become a bunch of pussies, and now instead of protecting EVERYONE ELSE, like their job SHOULD require, they think of themselves FIRST.
That's why you get so many situations where the cop shoots first and asks questions later...you know, for their "safety".
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Taken to the natural conclusion a spree shooter with anxiety issues could be excused because they feared for their life because they were afraid everyone was going pull out a gun and shoot them or curse him to a wasting death from using the evil eye.
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Re:
> the cop shoots first and asks questions
> later...you know, for their "safety".
If it's a question between my safety and some shitbag whipping rocks at me, or shooting at me, or whatever the hell they're trying to do to me, you better believe I�m going to consider my safety paramount over theirs.
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> about serving and protecting themselves.
That whole "serve and protect" thing is actually just the motto of one department-- the LAPD. No one in law enforcement ever claimed it to be universal in its application.
If I had dime every time some wannabe internet lawyer told me I was "violating my oath to serve and protect the public", who then slunk away when I quoted the actual oath I took and pointed out that nowhere does it say anything about serving or protecting the public, I could buy that beach house in Hawaii I've always wanted.
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Ahhhh those poor rock throwing degenerates
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