Referencing new Pentagon guidance, Newsweek has a rather excited report out on Tuesday warning that U.S. military forces stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border have been authorized to use lethal force against moving vehicles.
The implication — that this is some kind of mandate to go around shooting innocents in cars — is patently false.
I don’t believe the U.S. military should be handling security at the Mexican border, but that issue is irrelevant here. This directive is about making explicit something implicit: that military personnel have the right to defend themselves and others from lethal force in situations where self-defense has become a reasonable choice. This guidance merely grants proportionate authority to platoon commanders and their noncommissioned officers to that effect.
Newsweek eventually gets to this point about two-thirds of the way through its breathless report. It references a Pentagon spokesman who explains that the new directive was issued “following sporadic incidents of violence at the border.”
Newsweek then screenshots the new Pentagon guidance. A section titled “vehicular threats” explains that “weapons may be fired at a moving vehicle or watercraft when [Department of Defense] forces have a reasonable belief that the vehicle or watercraft posing an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm to [DoD persons] and non-DoD persons in the vicinity when doing so is directly related to the assigned mission.”
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Let’s be clear: This is a standard-fare rules of engagement directive. It is motivated by a new threat assessment, and it recommends force proportionate to the anticipated threat. And as the ensuing section, G.6.K., makes clear, U.S. military forces are also directed to “avoid confrontation” wherever possible.
Newsweek suggests that these rules of engagement are excessive and lack conformity with directives issued to civilian police forces. But that’s also false. Police officers have a standing right to use lethal force to defend themselves and others in the face of an imminent threat to life or threat of serious injury. That includes — as illustrated by numerous recent examples (see below) — firing on vehicles that pose such threats.
The basic point here is quite simple. The Department of Defense has rightly issued guidance to ensure that its personnel are aware of their right to defend themselves. Those personnel are still bound to military law. This is a fake scandal.
Here are three recent examples of civilian police officers who lawfully fired on moving vehicles:
- July 2018, Las Vegas, Nevada: officer fires from moving vehicle at fleeing suspect vehicle.
- March 2019, Little Rock, Arkansas: officer fires at moving vehicle as driver attempts to run him over.
- June 2019, Seminole County, Florida: officer fires at moving vehicle as driver drags him along highway.
