“Tunnel vision” may have played a role in Minneapolis ICE shooting, CNN chief analyst says

Footage of Wednesday’s shooting in Minneapolis appears to show the wheels of the vehicle driven by the victim were turned away from officers, according to CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller, despite early claims by federal officials that the victim had weaponized her SUV against ICE agents. "This is what the video suggests, which is all we have to go on right now," Miller said. "But the wheels are cut away. If she was intending to run over the agent in front of her, the wheels would have stayed straight. She would have gunned the engine and done that." Many major cities’ police departments follow the doctrine that shooting at a moving vehicle is not tactically sound. A 2023 study by the Police Executive Research Forum, an influential law enforcement think tank, recommended agencies’ policies "should prohibit shooting at or from a moving vehicle," unless the driver of the vehicle is using it as a "weapon of mass destruction" in a situation like a ramming attack or car bombing. Still, whether federal officials will deem the shooting justified is a "challenging question," Miller said, because it will likely turn on the officer’s mindset. "The reason it’s such a challenging question is, when you’ve been in these situations, there’s something that they call ‘tunnel vision,’ which is you’re focused on the target and the threat, and you’re not seeing the bigger picture around you," Miller said, pointing again to the vehicle’s wheels being turned away from the agents. "You’re seeing the car move forward, you see your partner who may be dragged by the car, you’re seeing that the car may hit you," he said. "And in that tunnel vision, sometimes you make decisions absent the big picture." "It still begs the tactical question – and this is not a new question – which is, if you’re facing a moving vehicle and it’s a threat to you because you’re in the way, get out of the way," Miller said. "That’s not a suggestion on my part," he added. "That has been the policy adopted by the New York City Police Department when I was there, by the Los Angeles Police Department when I was there, by the FBI and federal agencies."