CBP knew about it 13 years ago
Ryan Goodman, co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, unearthed a report on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s violent culture from 13 years ago. CBP commissioned it and then tried to bury it:
The 2013 report found a deeply concerning pattern of conduct:
“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 independent review was conducted for CBP by a nonprofit organization, Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), which works closely with law enforcement agencies. The review covered cases from January 2010 to October 2012. As a mechanism to avoid misconduct in future, the PERF report recommended:
“Training and tactics should focus on avoiding positions that put agents in the path of a vehicle and getting out of the way of moving vehicles.”
That recommendation is relevant not only in consideration of the Renee Good killing but also in reflection of the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets reporting on other potentially illegal uses of deadly force by ICE agents against people in vehicles in recent months.
Back in 2013, CBP initially rejected PERF’s major recommendations for policy change on the use of deadly force. CBP also tried to keep the report secret, even from Congress. As the LA Times reported in 2014:
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which had commissioned the review, has tried to prevent the scathing 21-page report from coming to light.
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.” (emphasis added)
The report which later became public is linked here.
After the LA Times obtained the full report and CBP’s 23-page internal response, the agency shifted course. Eight days after the LA Times report, Border Patrol Chief Michael J. Fisher issued the following Directive “effective immediately”:
In accordance with CBP’s current Use of Force policy, agents shall not discharge their firearms at a moving vehicle unless the agent has a reasonable belief, based on the totality of the circumstances that deadly force is being used against an agent or another person present; such deadly force may include a moving vehicle aimed at agents or others present, but would not include a moving vehicle merely fleeing from agents. Further, agents should not place themselves in the path of a moving vehicle or use their body to block a vehicle’s path.
On May 22, 2014, the ACLU sued the CBP for release of the PERF report under the Freedom of Information Act. Again it was just eight days later that CBP then released the PERF report (though not the agency’s internal response) and made its revised handbook on the use of force public.
But has CBP made its handbook mandatory reading for the belligerent, masked thugs it’s hiring, arming, handing badges, and sending to snatch people off the streets, out of their cars, the ones turning this country into a totalitarian dystopia?
(Aside: Look at how haphazardly any gaggle of CBP agents are “uniformed.” IN any group they may be variously branded FEDERAL AGENT, ERO, CBP, HSI, ICE, or simply POLICE. It is as if CBP fits out its agents with uniforms and tactical gear randomly pulled out of bins for maximum public confusion.)
Looking for loopholes
Goodman provides a list of CBP policies on the use of deadly force against vehicles going back to 2010 at Just Security. He adds, “It gives you a sense of changes made over time and the current policies in place when ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good.”
From 2023:
C. Use of Safe Tactics
1. DHS LEOs should seek to employ tactics and techniques that effectively bring an incident under control while promoting the safety of LEOs and the public,and that minimize the risk of unintended injury or serious property damage. DHS LEOs should also avoid intentionally and unreasonably placing themselves in positions in which they have no alternative to using deadly force.
Do their policies also include not drawing and aiming weapons at unarmed bystanders and angrily threatening to shoot them?
Does training include discussion of the Fourth Amendment, the one that insures the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” except upon issuance of a warrant by a local or federal judge?
Apparently not. If CBP studied its own use-of-force guidelines, it was for loopholes.
The warrant agents display here does not look like a judicial warrant. This home invasion is not a legal police action.
Great. Victims may file an administrative tort claim with CBP “for property damage or loss, or personal injury, or death resulting from the negligent or wrongful acts or omissions of an employee of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).” Good luck with that. Especially if you’re dead.
Or you might file a civil rights complaint with the Department of Homeland Security. Good luck with that too. (See American Grotesquerie for legislative long-shots in the pipeline.)
A ray of hope
“So, this all seems horrible,” as Bruce Banner said in The Avengers (2012). He was talking about an invasion from space, not a home invasion. Whatever.
Anand Giridharadas wants to add some glass-half-full to the discussion. This chaos is not the beginning of something, he argues, but the bitter end of the backlash:
We must understand that what we’ve been living through is backlash. Backlash. It’s not the engine of history. It is the revolt against the engine of history. Then we might remember — just to pat ourselves on the back for a second — that what we are actually endeavoring to do right now is to become a kind of society that has seldom, if ever, existed in history. Which is become a majority-minority, democratic superpower.
[…]
And what we have to do is get smarter than those powerful people. Get more organized than them, and understand that there is a different story to tell those who mistakenly went to the Mall and the 12 percent of Americans who actually supported that terrorist attack, and everybody else — a story to tell them about something great we are trying to do. We will actually create a country that’s better for every single person. But we have to be willing to tell that story forcefully. We have to be willing to fight those people tooth and nail, and we have to fight to win.
We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.
Until then, we fight.