Letters to the Editor: ICE’s tactics could be putting its own agents at risk

To the editor: Staff writer Libor Jany’s article on why police departments discourage shooting at moving vehicles underscores the risks (“Why LAPD and other police agencies discourage shooting at cars — and why ICE still does,” Jan. 9). But one detail in the Minneapolis eyewitness video deserves equal attention: The agent who shot Renee Nicole Good fired his handgun within a few feet of nearby fellow agents. Those agents visibly flinch and appear to scramble for footing.

That is not a minor “optics” point. It is a near-friendly-fire scenario created by a tactic that most modern policing has learned to avoid: firing into (or at) a moving vehicle in a dynamic scene. If the federal government insists ICE must operate in situations like this, then ICE should be held to the same — or higher — standards on de-escalation, backdrop awareness and prohibitions on shooting at vehicles. Local departments do that precisely to avoid preventable tragedies.

Buzz McCord, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: Surprisingly, the article on why police have moved away from the practice of firing at moving cars did not include a single word about how deadly a weapon a car is while traveling at 100 mph and blowing through stop signs and red lights. The deaths and injuries suffered by innocent bystanders should have been included in the equation of pros and cons of shooting or not shooting.

Ben Zuckerman, Los Angeles