Florida Officers Prohibited from Shooting at Cars

Miami Beach police officers will no longer treat a moving car as a deadly weapon — meaning officers won’t be allowed to shoot at one unless someone inside displays a weapon or opens fire first.

The deadly force policy change — expected to be unveiled by Police Chief Dan Oates next week — comes more than three years after the high-profile Memorial Day weekend shooting of motorist Raymond Herisse . He died in a bullet-riddled blue Hyundai targeted by 116 police rounds, which also wounded four innocent bystanders.

Miami Beach commissioners contacted by the Miami Herald  said they had not yet been briefed on the new shooting rules. But Commissioner Michael Grieco called a change a “no-brainer.” The Herisse case, still under investigation by Miami-Dade prosecutors, proved a national embarrassment for the force and the city.

“With, or without what happened on Memorial Day weekend, it sounds like a sound policy,” said Grieco. “It sounds like something so basic that one wouldn’t really need to have a policy on that. It just seems like a pretty logical thing.”