Should Iowa police shoot at moving cars?

One-third of officer-involved shootings in Iowa in the past two years involved police shooting at people in moving vehicles, despite evidence these maneuvers are risky, often avoidable and banned in many metropolitan police departments.

In nine shootings, Iowa law enforcement officers fired at people in vehicles, usually during or after a chase. In most cases, the driver accelerated toward an officer's body or cruiser or the officer feared that was going to happen.

'My husband is a police officer and I want him to come home at night,' said Gayle Rhineberger-Dunn, a University of Northern Iowa associate criminology professor. 'I would have a hard time being upset if he shot at a vehicle.'

But as a criminologist, Rhineberger-Dunn questions whether shooting at a person in a moving car is the right choice.

'Why are we there? What has the person done? Are they a threat to others?' she asked. 'It behooves us to examine the outcomes of those cases and whether or not we should be shooting at moving vehicles.'

Case study

Fairfield Police Officer Kathy Blumhagen was on an overnight patrol June 2 last year when she spotted a sedan spray-painted blue. She typed in the license plate, but got one of the letters wrong and the plate appeared to be registered to another vehicle.

'It looked suspicious and she wanted to investigate it further, which is part of her job,' Fairfield Police Capt. Colin Smith said.

Blumhagen put on her lights, but Dakota Murray, 19, of Keosauqua didn't pull over. He made several turns before gathering speed and heading south out of Fairfield on Highway 1, according to the dash-camera recording obtained by The Gazette.

The chase reached 95 mph at one point, but eventually slowed as Murray's car started to leak some sort of fluid.

'You could at least make this a little more interesting,' Blumhagen quipped about five minutes into the chase.

Three minutes later, Murray veered onto a gravel road, skidding into a U-turn and reversing into a ditch.

Blumhagen and Fairfield Sgt. David Wall, guns drawn, ran toward the car and, fearing the teen would drive it up the embankment, started firing. One, two, three, four, five shots fired, one through the windshield.

'God's looking out for them tonight,' Blumhagen told other officers after learning neither Murray, nor his passenger, a 16-year-old girl, was hit.

Murray was charged and convicted with eluding police and sentenced to two years prison.

Is it justified?

Van Buren County Attorney Abe Watkins determined the actions of Fairfield Police were justified. That's because Iowa law allows law enforcement officers to use deadly force if they believe their lives or the lives of others are at risk.

'If you're using a car as a deadly weapon against an officer, the officer could use deadly force,' said Russ Rigdon, legal instructor for the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of police who have fired shots at moving vehicles even when the cars are driving away, Rigdon said.

Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden determined the March 29 shooting of Kyle R. Orth, 28, of Cedar Rapids, by Cedar Rapids police was justified after Orth led police on a chase, crashed into a telephone pole and drove at two officers.

Orth was sentenced in December to six months in jail for drunken driving and eluding police.

Risks outweigh benefits

But law enforcement experts say shooting at moving vehicles is generally a bad idea.

'You may not hit the intended target. You could hit a passenger or some civilian outside the car,' said Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminology professor who studies use of force. 'If you happen to hit the driver, then you've got an unguided missile.'

A better option would be to get out of the way, he said.

'If an officer has time to pull his gun and shoot, he has time to take two or three steps back and avoid the vehicle,' Alpert said.

Many police departments in major cities have banned shooting at moving vehicles unless the person in the car is threatening the officer or someone else with deadly force other than the vehicle.

'Moving into or remaining in the path of a moving vehicle, whether deliberate or inadvertent, SHALL NOT be justification for discharging a firearm at the vehicle or any of its occupants,' states the Philadelphia Police Department directive on use of force. 'An officer in the path of an approaching vehicle shall attempt to move to a position of safety rather than discharging a firearm at the vehicle or any of the occupants of the vehicle.' (Capital letters used by the department.)

Cities with similar prohibitions include Denver, New York City and Los Angeles.

Cedar Rapids and Iowa City police departments allow officers to shoot at moving vehicles only 'as a last resort to prevent death or substantial harm to officers or other people.'

Perceived threat

Law enforcement officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about potential threats and lawyers who review officer-involved shootings tend to give officers the benefit of the doubt.

'Whether the officer perceived a threat is up to the officer,' said Watkins, Van Buren County prosecutor.

A Waterloo man filed a federal lawsuit in July against the city of Waterloo, claiming Waterloo Police officers lied about an April 5 officer-involved shooting.

Police said Jovan Webb, 28, who police wanted to talk with about a fight, bumped Sgt. Steven Bose with the front of his car as Webb tried to drive out of a parking lot. Bose dove to the ground to avoid being hit, but other officers thought Bose had been struck or was being dragged by Webb's car, the Iowa Attorney General's Office reported.

Webb faces charges of assault, interference and carrying a weapon.

Webb's lawsuit claimed he was unfairly targeted by police because he is black. He claimed he had nothing to do with the fight, and when he tried to drive away police blocked his exit and then shot him five times.

Both parties agreed to dismiss the suit Feb. 5 because of the criminal case.

Often a review of officer-involved shootings shows things police could have done differently to de-escalate the conflict. The Van Buren County shooting will be used as a training scenario for Fairfield Police, Smith said.

'There were some instances the officers could have done things better,' he said. 'Overall, they followed our policies to the letter. That's really all we can ask of them.'