The Officers Who Killed Renee Good Appear To Have Violated ICE’s Own Use-Of-Force Policies

The federal agents led by an ICE officer who surrounded and fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis last month appear to have violated the agency’s policies regarding the use of force during nearly every step of the encounter, according to internal documents obtained by HuffPost.

The ICE Firearms and Use of Force Directive states that it “serves as the authoritative guidance” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It outlines requirements on how to handle fleeing subjects, including those who are in a vehicle; how to properly handle firearms in close proximity to people; guidelines for deescalation; and what actions agents should take before resorting to deadly force.

“ICE employees are expected to be familiar with the contents of this Handbook and required to take appropriate action to comply with policies and procedures established herein,” it says. “Violation of the policies and procedures contained in this Handbook may be grounds for disciplinary action or other appropriate action.”

Video of the encounter shows three officers approaching Good’s vehicle, and at least two of them instructing her to get out. Good is sitting in the driver’s seat, while her wife stands beside the vehicle. The federal agents bark commands at Good to “get out of the fucking car”; one reaches inside the driver’s side window and attempts to unlock the door. ICE officer Jonathan Ross comes from around the passenger side to stand in front of the vehicle. Good appears to try to maneuver away from the officers and drive away.

Ross, who is recording on his cellphone with one hand and holding his gun in the other, then shoots at Good at least three times. He refers to her as a “fucking bitch” after shooting her in the head.

The handbook states that only one officer should be giving orders at a time to avoid confusion, and that officers should have a “professional, courteous demeanor” and a “positive attitude” on approach. Officers are instructed to give commands in a “professional, firm voice” and use “instructions that are simple, easy to understand and repeated as necessary.”

Michel Moore, a former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, explained in an interview with HuffPost why this early moment of the interaction made the scene unnecessarily tense.

“The use of profanity in that charged situation lacks professionalism, and it heightens and escalates tensions,” Moore said. “You don’t walk up and say, ‘Mother, may I?’ or ‘Would you please mind stopping?’ That’s not reasonable. But going all the way to ‘get the fuck out of the car’ — well, you’ve missed all the other steps of establishing what we call a command presence.”

Not waiting for Good to comply with this order, one officer reaches inside the driver’s side window. Though this is not explicitly prohibited in the handbook, it states that “ICE policy requires officers to adjust force based on evolving circumstances and to consider environmental and tactical factors.”

“There are a number of really grave and serious tactical and legal mistakes that the officers on the scene made to ultimately precipitate a use of force that was not necessary, and not proportional to the nature of the threat,” said Matthew Barge, a senior fellow for the Policing Project at NYU School of Law. He has spent 18 years probing police and public safety issues and has reviewed thousands of hours of footage of deadly or excessive force. Officers approached Good in a way that was “completely uncoordinated and really chaotic,” Barge said.

At the same time, Ross was filming the encounter with Good and her wife with his cellphone. The handbook does not explicitly prohibit handling a phone while holding a gun, but it does emphasize control, awareness and safe handling of a weapon when in close contact with others.

Stepping into the path of a vehicle is widely recognized by law enforcement as a high-risk tactic. One ICE officer previously told HuffPost they were trained to consider vehicles to be deadly weapons and, following the Good shooting, they were told by officials not to stand in front of cars and to be “cautious around them.” A senior Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that ICE officers are trained never to approach a vehicle from the front and instead, approach in a “tactical L” 90-degree angle to prevent injury.

“Deadly force is not authorized solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect,” the handbook states. “Deadly force against a fleeing subject is only authorized if there is probable cause to believe that the escape of the suspect would pose an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person.”

“The use of excessive force by ICE employees is strictly prohibited,” the handbook warns.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment about apparent violations of ICE’s use-of-force policy.

Even if officers had probable cause to believe Good was interfering with their operations and she attempted to flee from them as they approached her car, Moore said most law enforcement officers would advise letting her leave and then investigating later. “You don’t shoot at a moving vehicle,” he said. “You get away from it.”

Even when considering that a vehicle could be seen as a potentially deadly weapon, protocol suggests Ross may have moved too quickly when deciding to fire his gun.

ICE operates under a “use of force continuum,” the handbook says. Agents must weigh the “totality of the circumstances” and first consider using “intermediate force” to deescalate if reasonable. (Last year, the Supreme Court used the same phrase — “totality of the circumstances” — when explaining what investigators must look at when evaluating whether an officer who used deadly force acted reasonably.)

Deescalation tactics named in the handbook include giving verbal warnings or establishing containment zones, like blocking off a street so a subject in a vehicle cannot flee. Even using chemical agents to deter a subject can be considered reasonable force, according to the manual.

But so far, the administration has slow-walked a criminal investigation of the agents involved in killing Good, after Trump officials initially slandered her as a “domestic terrorist.” The FBI cut out state and local officials from the investigation. And the path to prosecution for federal agents is narrow.

The handbook warns that agents will face consequences for violating ICE policy. Ross seems to have faced only one consequence since the shooting on Jan. 7: A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told HuffPost last week that he had been put on leave.