Former force expert calls ICE agent’s actions ‘excessive’ in Minneapolis

Since Wednesday, Minneapolis has been experiencing ongoing protests and heightened security after the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fatally shot a woman in the head.

The videos of the shooting show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

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• Protesters, ICE face off with tensions high in Minneapolis after fatal shooting

The central question is whether the response was necessary, proportionate and appropriate given the circumstances. To explore the issue of use of force, an expert, Darcy Koch, former Superintendent of the Support Services Division with Regina Police Service and Provincial Use of Force Expert, joined the Evan Bray Show.

Listen here for the full interview:

This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Evan Bray: Let’s first start with your work. You worked how many years with the police service?

Darcy Koch: Thirty-four.

In your 34 years, what was the training? What was the expertise? What was your involvement with use of force?

Koch: Initially, I started out as a use of force instructor at the Saskatchewan Police College, which trains all municipal officers in the province. Spent nine years doing that. Three of those years, I was the lead instructor. I also was sworn as the use of force expert for the province of Saskatchewan, that would testify on behalf of the Saskatchewan Police Commission in incidents where force was used and being questioned and have done that in court in Saskatchewan. And also spent 14 years of my 34 years on our tactical response team here in Regina, known as our SWAT team. So, was a team leader of that team as well. So, extensive training and use of force from everything that police do, from tasers to impact munitions to tactics. So, a lot of my career was involved in that area.

Let’s talk now about this incident in Minneapolis. There are numerous videos floating around out there from various different angles. You’ve had a chance to see the videos. Give us your thoughts when you saw that use of force and all of the subsequent videos.

Koch: Initially, when you first view it, and you don’t see all the angles, you see an officer in front of a vehicle that’s moving and discharge of a weapon. But, the lead up to that is where my questions are, as to the tactics that were deployed there in that instant. The overall tactic, in my view, wasn’t safe. When an officer reaches into a vehicle to try to remove someone who is actively able to drive that vehicle is risky and dangerous. I’m aware of incidents in our own city, here in Regina in my career, where officers had been injured doing that. So, the tactics used there, I would say were not safe necessarily and I think the result of that was tragic and probably shouldn’t have happened.

When you’re thinking about the use of force model, lethal force, or the use of a firearm, (which) is obviously at the extreme end of the model. If this was an incident that happened in Saskatchewan, and you were asked to comment on things that could have been done differently, or things that you would want to investigate further, what would you be focusing on?

Koch: The model is a graphical description [that] allows officers to explain why they used force and what they observed. So initially, the model has an assessment period. Inside the centre of that model, which is a circle, allowing the officers to make decisions on a type of force to be used based on the subject’s behaviour. For what I was seeing the assessment was there was someone in a vehicle that was given some commands that were not necessarily ignored, but weren’t immediately adhered to. At that point in time, the officers there, I don’t believe, determined that situation to be very risky. The amount of force that was being applied or used through communication and those type of things in presence was enough to deal with that. It changed the moment the vehicle started to move and one officer, not a whole bunch of officers, deemed that action of that vehicle moving was [that] their life was in danger. Then they chose to use a level of force, which in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, I would say was excessive.

We’ve learned yesterday that this officer has actually been involved in a situation where he was injured by a vehicle. In this case, is that a factor?

Koch: It’s hard for me to say. But, as an expert witness, or an expert witness to our use of force, my position would be that each incident is on its own merit. It’s dangerous and very risky for officers to say because of what happened to me before, I then am justified in increasing the level of force I’m going to use or be quicker to do that. I think that’s dangerous. You can’t make the stretch to say, because this happened to me previously, I’m then going to escalate quicker, because I don’t want it to happen again.

Do [ICE agents] get the same training that police do when it comes to things like vehicles? Given what their focus would be, I wonder how much training comes into this.

Koch: I know from my own experience in terms of firearms – I was firearms instructor as well in my career – [there’s] very little training about shooting, and if any shooting at a vehicle. It’s the last resort in an extremely risky situation that whatever is happening, that vehicle must be stopped immediately, or someone may lose their life. The amount of training to get to discharge a firearm at a moving vehicle is limited to tactical teams, potentially in the worst situation. But, frontline patrol officers, I can’t comment what kind of training they had, but that, to me, was a responsive officer that for whatever reason, he believed his life was in danger and he used lethal force to deal with it. Now, one thing I will say is there were some comments about immediate and imminent danger and use of lethal force. In most cases, in my experience, there is immediate danger of loss of life or grievous bodily harm. It’s not imminent. Imminent is down the road. It may happen. When lethal force is used in most situations, it’s immediate. It must be done immediately, or bodily harm or death is going to occur. I see there’s a big difference there. In this situation, I don’t there may have been imminent danger, but I don’t believe there is immediate.

The argument on the other side of it is that there was immediate danger to that officer who was standing in front of her vehicle, literally two, three feet away when she put the vehicle in drive and drove forward.

Koch: I can see that from the video. But also from the video, I can see the officer steps to the side, has time to draw his weapon and deliver not only one, but two shots. To me, there’s time there to make a decision. In my opinion, as use of force expert, I think the decision was poor. I think there’s other use of force options that were readily available, that could have been used and were not.

– With files from The Canadian Press