Nobody in the administration has said boo about trying to justify the second and third shots. They glide. They slide. From the side point blank at a passing vehicle's driver.
Get real.
Here's the link to the Homan reporting. Blowing smoke.
Moreover, Ross sues, civil lawsuit, not a criminal trial. He either testifies, or can be asked why he's not testifying. If he testifies, "Tell me, sir, how you explain a second and third shot at a passing vehicle posing no threat whatsoever to you?"
Do you believe he'd handle that question well? With a show of credibility?
With background evidence he had no local grant of traffic enforcement authority?
With background evidence of his character? Having to be deposed in discovery?
With policy and conduct manuals applying at the time he shot? They say don't get in front of a running vehicle. "Sir, so how do you explain deliberately blocking the driver's ability to exit the scene peaceably? To assure your own maximum safety?"
Get real. This CNN item states in part -
The documents shed new light on Renee Good’s connection to efforts to monitor and potentially disrupt ICE operations – an association that federal officials have made clear is at the center of their review into the deadly incident that occurred as she partially blocked ICE agents in the street with her SUV.
But four legal experts who reviewed the documents for CNN said they largely describe nonviolent civil disobedience tactics practiced at American protests for generations – far from the sinister depiction of extremism and domestic terrorism portrayed by Trump administration officials like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance.
“There’s nothing in there that suggests attacking ICE agents or engaging in any other form of physical harm or property damage,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William and Mary Law School who wrote a book on protest law. “This is authoritarianism 101 where you blame the dissenters and the activists for causing their own death.”
At least six federal prosecutors in Minneapolis resigned Tuesday over pressure from the Trump administration to focus their probe on the actions of Good and those around her, according to a person briefed on the matter.
[...] Good was partially blocking a street with her SUV on Wednesday as ICE agents operated in the area. An ICE officer who was filming Good shot her after she started to accelerate her SUV. Videos of the deadly interaction show that Good was turning her vehicle away from the agent as she pulled forward, but it’s unclear whether she made contact with him before he fired.
Federal officials have claimed without providing evidence that Good was engaging in “domestic terrorism” and had been “stalking agents all day long,” while some state and local lawmakers have decried that rhetoric as false and incendiary.
Good’s family members have said that she and her wife had come from dropping off their son earlier that morning at Southside, about a mile and a half from where Good was shot.
Good’s wife, Becca Good, said in a statement last week that the couple had “stopped to support our neighbors,” adding, “We had whistles. They had guns.”
Legal experts who spoke to CNN said it was troubling that federal officials appeared to be focusing on low-level violations by protesters instead of the shooting of Good itself.
Gregory Magarian, a professor and First Amendment expert at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said that the noncooperation tactics described in the guide could potentially violate some laws depending on the context of the situation. But overall, he said, the document endorsed standard nonviolent protest actions that don’t merit an investigation by federal law enforcement.
“If the FBI has an inkling of investigating the protest organizers, it should read that and say, ‘OK, there’s not a fruitful path of inquiry here. Nothing about that raises red flags, nothing about that raises alarms, we should get back to doing our job,’” Magarian said. The idea that the agency would investigate protesters instead of the use of deadly force is “appalling and really dangerous,” he added.
Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, added that attempts to investigate activists and protesters appear to have “the goal of trying to justify the officer’s conduct.”
Which was unjustifiable use of force, resulting in death. I.e., murder. Against policy and against anybody's sense of good judgment.
Consider this item stating in part -
The Department of Justice says in its Justice Manual that firearms should not be used simply to disable a moving vehicle. The policy allows deadly force only in limited circumstances, such as when someone in the vehicle is threatening another person with deadly force, or when the vehicle itself is being used in a way that poses an imminent risk and no reasonable alternative exists, including moving out of the vehicle’s path
[...]
What training experts say about moving vehicle policies
The debate over shooting at moving vehicles has been sharpened by high-profile cases, including a 2023 shooting in Ohio in which an officer fired through the windshield of a car in a grocery store parking lot while investigating a shoplifting allegation. The pregnant driver was killed; the officer was later charged and acquitted.
John P. Gross, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law who has written extensively about officers shooting at moving vehicles, said while more departments have added explicit policies regarding use-of-force and moving vehicles, officer training also needs to improve.
“If this woman was blocking the street and a law enforcement operation, they are entitled to arrest her. What they are not entitled to do is to use deadly force to arrest her,” Gross said. “From just watching the video, this seems like an egregious example.”
He said officers need to consider the totality of a situation, the crime or allegation being made against someone, whether they can be found at a later date or whether they are an actual danger.
Gross noted that Minnesota passed a revision to its use-of-force statutes that require clearly identified and immediate threats and also make it easier for prosecutors to file state charges for excessive force.
Clearly you cannot as an officer put yourself into a dangerous position to deliberately think you can use that breach of norms as cause to justify deadly force if you could simply have put yourself out of danger, to not make deadly force a consideration needing scrutiny.
This pretext provocation of a "need" to shoot, including but not limited to second and third times from the side of the vehicle moving past you is offensive to sane judgment, and raises the question of intentional provocation of a dangerous situation by not acting properly. See, also: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/23_0206_s1_use-of-force-policy-update.pdf
End of story.