An ICE officer fired at an SUV fleeing a car stop in Pennsylvania. That’s not how it should happen, policing experts say

By Shimon Prokupecz, Nicki Brown, CNN

(CNN) — In the early morning of July 1, federal immigration officers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, pulled over a white SUV. An unmarked Immigration and Customs Enforcement car stopped in front of the SUV to block its path, while other law enforcement vehicles parked behind it, according to surveillance video obtained by CNN affiliate WGAL.

“Get out of the car now,” one officer said after he approached the driver’s side.

When the driver did not emerge after officers repeatedly ordered him out of the SUV, an officer shattered the window. The SUV then drove away, appearing to clip the ICE vehicle stopped in front of it before turning the wrong way down a one-way street. One ICE officer fired his gun as the SUV drove away from the officers and hit a parked car.

In a statement, an ICE spokesperson said the driver – who the agency said had a criminal history of assault, hit-and-run, and a domestic incident – had “weaponized his car and rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle.”

An ICE officer discharged his weapon, and the driver escaped, the statement said.

It’s the latest example of how surveillance footage can undermine the government’s public statements, and a law enforcement expert told CNN it clearly demonstrates some of the poor tactics being used by ICE officers.

“The vehicle pulls in front to stop the car from fleeing, but isn’t even effective at doing that. It’s not even properly positioned to do that because the guy’s pretty easily able to get around him,” said Kenneth Corey, former chief of department for the New York Police Department. “He takes a little sideswipe damage, but he doesn’t ram his way out of that, by any means.”

The officers missed multiple opportunities to conduct the car stop more safely, he said, likely due to their inexperience handling such situations – which could be contributing to similar confrontations across the country.

“I think that just goes to the lack of practice in these situations where the agents are almost having to kind of make it up as they go along,” Corey said. “While they received some training a number of years ago on how to do this, it’s not something that they’ve really executed well in the real world.”

The incident in Harrisburg occurred days before an ICE agent fatally shot a 52-year-old man during a car stop in Houston. Less than a week later, another ICE agent killed a 25-year-old man during a vehicle stop in Maine. Neither victim was the intended target of the immigration enforcement operations. The killings prompted community vigils for the victims and renewed outcry over the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics.

Following the shooting in Maine this week, the agency issued a pause on most vehicle stops conducted by ICE agents, which was swiftly overturned by President Donald Trump, who has made mass deportations a cornerstone of his second term.

ICE shifted its tactics

Vehicle stops were not always a major component of the agency’s actions, experts told CNN, as agents would typically take people into custody from a local jail or a targeted location, such as a residence or workplace. But car stops have ramped up during Trump’s immigration crackdown, as his administration set a goal of making 2,000 immigration-related arrests a day.

“They didn’t really try to pick people up off the street the way they are now,” Corey said. “So now you’ve shifted these tactics into really what’s more akin to local policing.”

Like all federal law enforcement officers, ICE agents would learn how to properly conduct vehicle stops when they first joined the force, but experts said the agency’s recent change in tactics hasn’t come with any additional training.

“There’s basic protocols at the academy, but you haven’t done this for 8, 9, 10 years,” former acting ICE director John Sandweg said, referring to experienced agents.

There also have been recent concerns about the onboarding and training of new federal immigration officers, which were exacerbated after the administration reduced the required training days for ICE agents – who receive far less training than almost any other federal agents with a badge and a gun, according to a CNN analysis.

“I really feel for the agents,” Corey said. “There’s been this change in approach without the commensurate retraining and practice that’s kind of needed.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, told CNN this week the agency will implement additional training, including for high-risk vehicle stops and crowd control. The agency also re-extended its training program to 71 days, the spokesperson said, adding previous graduates will get “follow-on training.”

A ‘terrible tactical position’

In November 2024, CNN joined a team of immigration enforcement agents as they moved to detain a convicted criminal in Flushing, Queens. The ICE team detailed the hours they spent researching the case and surveilling the man’s residence before several agents staked out the home to take him into custody.

This lengthy process was typical of ICE’s previous procedures to track down criminals, Sandweg said, which may have shifted under the demands of this administration’s daily arrest goals.

“The more time you’re chasing on doors looking for that criminal, you’re not feeding the beast: the quota,” he said.

Instead of spending hours on stakeouts waiting to confront a person near their home, ICE agents are likely feeling the pressure to make multiple arrests throughout the day, when people are typically out of the house and possibly in transit, resulting in more car stops.

On the other hand, vehicle stops – which are widely considered to be one of the most dangerous law enforcement activities – have always been a cornerstone for local police, which are trained extensively on how to appropriately conduct them.

“The traffic stop portion of training is something that’s recycled, that they do on a regular basis just to make sure the officers get a strong understanding of the tactics,” said Rodney Harrison, a former NYPD Chief of Department and Suffolk County, New York, police commissioner.

Officers are trained to pull the car over in an area where the vehicles can park outside the flow of traffic. Corey said best practice is generally not to use a police vehicle to block the car’s path in the front – a tactic that has been utilized in some recent ICE vehicle stops, including the one in Harrisburg.

“Those officers in the front car are in a terrible, terrible tactical position,” he said. “The person on the passenger side of that vehicle, when they get out of the car, they are completely exposed.”

Instead, instructors teach police to approach the vehicle from behind and to avoid standing in the car’s path.

“If somehow you wound up in that position and the vehicle started moving at you, we teach them to get off the X – basically get out of the way,” Corey said.

There are several other, safer ways law enforcement can prevent a vehicle from fleeing besides physically blocking its path, such as using spike strips and other tools that can deflate tires, the former chief said.

“There are ways to do it without placing the agents in a position to be struck, but all of that requires training and getting them to really incorporate that training into real-world practice,” Corey said.

Shooting at cars can create ‘even greater danger’

Different departments and agencies have various policies outlining what actions are appropriate if a car stop or other incident goes awry.

“People are going to resist, they’re going to try to flee. They may physically attack you,” Corey said. “All of those things happen, and that’s where the training and tactics really has to kick in.”

Many local law enforcement departments direct their personnel not to fire at a moving car unless there is a threat of deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself – a policy that’s also recommended by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonpartisan policing think tank.

“Shooting at the vehicle isn’t going to stop the car – shooting the driver now turns that car into essentially an unguided missile,” Corey said. “You’ve probably created a situation of even greater danger because there’s nobody left in control of that car.”

DHS policies prohibit law enforcement officials from shooting solely to disable a moving vehicle and state that officers should only use deadly force when there’s “an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury” to the officer or another individual.

Corey noted the officer in Harrisburg fired his weapon as the car was already driving away from the federal officers.

“If you’re saying that the officers are firing because the car was trying to run them over, then they’d be firing at the car as it was heading towards them, not speeding away from them,” he said, although he added it was unclear what people inside the vehicle were doing at the time.

Under the circumstances seen in the video, Harrison said, firing a gun was not necessary.

“Was anybody at risk of serious physical injury or death? And the answer is no,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a need for deadly physical force in that situation.”

In the recent deadly shooting in Maine, DHS said the officer opened fire “fearing for public safety” after the car attempted to flee. The agency has not said what the driver may have done to create that fear. After the shooting, the victim’s car was seen on surveillance footage driving in slow circles as federal agents appeared to try and stop the vehicle.

And following the fatal incident in Houston, ICE said an officer fired his weapon in “self-defense” after a driver rammed into a law enforcement vehicle and refused to follow verbal commands. The driver’s family has disputed the government’s account.

The officers involved in these shootings were not wearing body-worn cameras, fueling skepticism of the government’s narrative of the events and renewing concerns about oversight and accountability.

Such footage can help expedite investigations, which can help determine if the use of force was legal, Corey said.

“You wind up in situations that are sometimes called ‘lawful but awful,’ where it looks absolutely terrible, but it does fit within the realm of legal justification,” he said.

The legal standard to charge law enforcement for a shooting that occurs while on duty is high, which also complicates calls for accountability. No criminal charges have been filed against any immigration enforcement officer involved in the recent fatal car stops.

If ICE agents and other law enforcement officials follow the best practices for vehicle stops and try to de-escalate the situation, Corey said, it could help them avoid some of those dangerous scenarios all together.

“When you’ve positioned yourself well, when you’ve used solid tactics in the run up to it, that’s how you avoid winding up in that situation where, yes, the shooting is going to be justifiable, but it was completely avoidable,” he said.

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