Everyone knows the basics concerning when law enforcement is permitted under the law to use deadly force. There must be an
imminent threat to the officer’s life.
And when it comes to shooting moving vehicles, the DOJ’s own
manual for federal officers should not fire at moving vehicles even to stop a person, “Deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.” The exception is if “the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause
death or serious physical injury to the officer or others and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which
includes
moving out of the path of the vehicle.”
Simply, that means that ICE Officer Jonathan Ross could not use deadly force if he could easily move out of the path of the vehicle. The reason is simple: Law enforcement should only kill people as a last resort.
Few people can explain this better than former FBI Special Agent Frank Figliuzzi who for two years was involved in reviewing when FBI agents used deadly force. I spoke to Frank—who like me is also a lawyer—on Thursday who immediately focused on the key legal
issue.
He pointed out that both the NY
Times and Washington
Post had published videos and freeze frames that show all three shots fired by Jonathan Ross were when he was no longer in front of the car. Here is a
link
to the NY Times footage that if you slow down, you can see that the officer was standing in front of the car closer to driver side when the vehicle backed up. When the car moved forward at what appears to be two or three miles per hour, instead of “moving
out of the path of the vehicle” as DOJ rules dictate, he suddenly pulled out his weapon and fired.
In addition, below are the freeze frame images from The
Washington Post that show us each shot. At the time Ross fires “shot 1”, you can see both his feet are on the driver’s side as the car is turning away from him—not driving into him. The second shot is fired point blank when he is parallel with Renee.
The final shot is fired by Ross as the car is moving away from him.
These facts are why Frank stated about the ICE officer: “This guy was not in harm’s way—and that’s a huge finding.” He noted that both the NY Times and Washington Post backed that up by way of the forensics experts they spoke
with.
Let’s assume for argument sake that the first shot by Ross was legally defensible (I don’t believe it is), that still does not mean he can legally fire the second and third bullets given he was clearly out of danger. Frank noted that would be part of the legal
review here.
I asked Frank is it relevant to his analysis that when you look at the video, the numerous other ICE officers don’t have their weapons drawn nor are they standing in any type of defensive position before Ross suddenly shoots and kills Renee.
Frank quickly responded: “Do you know why? The reason why those two agents are alongside the side of the car, and don’t have their guns drawn, is because they don’t perceive this to be a guns-drawn scenario.” He added,
“And they’ve been trained not to stand in front of a vehicle.”
Worse as Frank noted, “I will tell you that the agent who fired absolutely endangered the lives of those two other agents.” If you look at the video, it was sheer luck that Ross didn’t kill his fellow ICE agents or innocent people standing around.
And to be clear, the new
footage by the ICE officer released Friday does not help Ross. In fact it does the opposite. It shows Renee being calm and very civil, saying to Ross only moments before he killed her, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad.” In addition, the situation
was rather calm until the other ICE agents showed up and began screaming at Renee to “Get out of the fucking car.”
It was these newly arriving ICE officers who escalated this situation from where Ross and Renee (plus her wife) were simply talking to each other to a deadly situation. It was literally ten seconds from when the ICE officers began screaming and Ross shot
Renee to death. Despite the lies of Trump regime, this new video does not show the car hitting the ICE agent. All we see is Ross putting his iPhone down and then we hear gun shots.
This was murder. Period. Ross must be charged. And I spoke on Thursday to the person who is involved in that very investigation, Minn Attorney General
Keith Ellison. Since then Trump’s FBI tried to cover up the killing by banning his offices from the evidence gathered. But on Friday Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty
announced
they will investigate the shooting despite Trump’s efforts to stonewall.
Below is my interview with Ellison. One part of our conversation that jumped out when he stated about Trump regime: “This is a tyrannical government with a paramilitary group of a Gestapo-style people, abusing the rights of the people of
this country...Trying to impose by force his will and dominance on the population.” That is truly what we are facing—and we are the ones called to defeat it.
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