The Counted: Moving Targets

09/01/2015 News Insights

By Jon Swaine, Oliver Laughland, Jamiles Lartey & Campaign Zero

Insight: The US Department of Justice, prominent international policing experts and most major police departments across the US agree: police officers should not fire their guns into moving cars. The shots are widely viewed as ineffective for stopping oncoming vehicles, and the risks to innocent parties are seen as overwhelming.
But a Guardian investigation has found US police have carried out at least 30 fatal shootings into moving vehicles they claimed were being used as weapons so far in 2015. More than a quarter of those killed were black men, a group that according to the US Census Bureau makes up just 6% of the driving-age American population.