The Denver PD Will No Longer Allow Its Officers to Shoot at Moving Cars Unless They Are Being Fired Upon

I suppose this is… a… victory for the people?

Seems pretty pathetic, actually.

Via The Denver Post:

The Denver Police Department will prohibit officers from shooting at moving cars unless someone inside is firing at them, a change in policy that mirrors one being adopted by police departments nationwide.

The police department introduced a policy change to its officers Monday, just days after Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey decided not to prosecute two officers who shot and killed 17-year-old Jessica Hernandez after they say she drove a car toward them. The policy changes were made public Tuesday.

Police Chief Robert White said the new policy is more detailed than the old one, which gave officers more discretion to open fire if they thought they would be hit by a car.

“Where this was a recommendation, now it’s a directive,” White said. “We want the first reaction to be get out of the way rather than pull your firearm.”

See? Apparently, it used to be a mere recommendation not to just open fire on cars with people in them who might not even be armed or a real threat.

A recommendation the Denver cops who shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old girl driving a stolen car back in January didn’t take.

Those cops, it was just decided days ago, won’t face any charges, by the way. She drove “a little too close” to the officers, so her murder has been deemed “justified.”

According to Talking Points Memo:

Soon after the shooting, a passenger in the car, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said officers came up on the car from behind and fired four times into the driver’s-side window.

The passenger also said the officers did not yell any commands before they fired, and that the car may have struck the officer after Hernandez was shot and lost control of the vehicle.

“Justified.”

Well, now it’s no longer simply a recommendation not to possibly kill unarmed citizens that first and foremost the cops are supposed to be serving and protecting.

Now it is a directive for the cops to try to get out of the way first.

So cops shouldn’t go around pulling their firearm first and asking questions later?

The fact that they need a directive for this kind of common sense speaks volumes about the police state we’re living in. Volumes.