In fatally shooting man in moving car, KCK cops used tactic discouraged by experts

After Kansas City, Kansas, police shot and killed a man during a traffic stop Wednesday night, the man’s girlfriend, who was a passenger in the car, said an officer opened fire after the man tried to drive away.

Much about how police came to shoot Amaree’ya Henderson, 25, a delivery driver from Independence, remains unknown. Kansas City, Missouri, police have taken over the investigation as an outside agency and have provided few facts about the shooting.

But shooting the driver of a moving car is generally considered a bad idea except under certain circumstances, according to national law enforcement experts and the policies of some of the biggest police departments in the country.

The policy of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department places limits on the authority of officers to shoot at moving vehicles, allowing it in situations where occupants are using a deadly weapon against police or the vehicle is being used as a deadly weapon against a person who is not able to move out of its path.

How that policy matches up to what occurred in the shooting is not clear. Video from body cameras or dashboard cameras that may have captured the shooting is not open to the public under Kansas law and might never be publicly released, though the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office has in the past shared videos after completing case reviews. Henderson’s family could be allowed to see the video under the law.

Nancy Chartrand, a spokeswoman for Kansas City, Kansas, police, declined on Friday to speak about the investigation in the context of the department’s use of force policies.

But she welcomed the public to examine the department’s policies, which are posted on the department’s website, saying residents should have access to information about the way police operate and instruct officers.

Henderson’s family and girlfriend have said they do not believe he had a weapon in the car at the time of the shooting. Kansas City, Missouri, police, who said the shooting occurred after a “confrontation” during the traffic stop, have not said a weapon was found at the scene.

Donna Drake, a Kansas City Police Department spokeswoman, did not respond to questions Thursday about whether Henderson was armed at the time of the shooting.

Details of the shooting

So far, the most detailed account of the shooting has come from Shakira Hill, Henderson’s girlfriend who was in the car with him at the time, and his mother, Pauletta Johnson, who was on a FaceTime call with the couple.

Hill told The Star that the couple had hopped in their shared car Wednesday so Henderson could make some extra money by making a few DoorDash deliveries.

They dropped off the last order in Kansas City, Kansas’ Argentine neighborhood. About 8:30 p.m., near the 12th Street Bridge over the Kansas River, Henderson stopped at a stop sign, then let his foot off the brake to go through the intersection.

That is when they saw the police lights, Hill said. They were pulled over by a Kansas City, Kansas, police officer in the 1100 block of Metropolitan Avenue.

Hill could see the fear in her partner as they waited for the officer to return their paperwork. Henderson, who was Black, had years earlier been wrongly arrested and beaten by police, according to his mother, and feared them since.

Hill said she told the officer they were scared long before the traffic stop escalated. They had both been pulled over in the past, but this time, something felt off, Hill said.

At Henderson’s request, Hill pulled out her phone and FaceTimed Johnson, who said she would head there immediately. In the meantime, two more police cars pulled in nearby, Hill said.

Again, they asked why they were pulled over, Hill said, and Johnson confirmed, from her vantage point on the FaceTime call. The officer, Hill said, told Henderson that he’d tell them if Henderson got out of the car.

Henderson told the officer he wasn’t going to get out of the car until his mother arrived. She would be there soon.

Johnson said she saw the officer crawl part-way into the front seat with Henderson and start “grabbing, pulling, punching, stomping.”

At some point, Johnson said, Henderson started to back the car up.

“Baby, don’t run,” Johnson recalled hearing Hill say to Henderson through the FaceTime.

“But we need to be where somebody can see us,” he responded.

“Baby, it’s OK. Just go ahead and pull back over. It’s cool.”

Hill remembered telling him. “OK, baby,” he responded, turning the wheel to park again, Hill said.

A moment later one of the officers shot him twice.

The vehicle only came to rest after it crashed into a parked car on Metropolitan Avenue.

Johnson heard the gunshots through the FaceTime video as she was driving. She watched the phone drop to the floor as Hill wailed “Why?” in the background.

An officer eventually picked up the phone and hung up the call, Johnson said. In total, the FaceTime call lasted about 14 minutes.

Shooting at moving vehicles

For decades, policing experts and many law enforcement leaders have been advising departments to adopt strict policies governing when an officer might fire a gun into a moving vehicle.

Since the 1970s, the New York City Police Department abandoned the practice of shooting a moving vehicle when no other threat — such as a person firing a weapon from the car — is present, and many other departments have taken similar steps.

Many law enforcement groups, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank, advise that officers should simply not do it at all unless the occupants present a danger in some way other than the vehicle itself.

That is partly because bullets do not stop a moving car. If the officer is in the path of a moving vehicle the best — or only — way to safety is to move. And if the officer is not in the path, there may be no need to shoot.

It is also frequently noted that firing at a vehicle creates a risk to bystanders, either from bullets that miss the target or a vehicle that would be left out of control once the driver is injured.

Kansas City, Kansas police policy

Under the most recently-approved rule book for Kansas City, Kansas police, use-of-force is broadly accepted in any case where an officer is in a situation where the risk of death or great bodily harm is “imminent.”

The Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department has two sections of policy that speak to shooting at moving vehicles.

A section posted online under the department’s pursuit policy says officers are “prohibited from discharging firearms from, or at, a moving vehicle unless the officer is confronted with a direct, immediate deadly force confrontation, where the vehicle itself is being used as a deadly weapon and the officer has no avenue of escape.”

“Officers are expressly forbidden from voluntarily placing themselves in the path of an oncoming vehicle in an attempt to provoke a deadly force confrontation,” it reads.

Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department Pursuit Policy by Ian Cummings on Scribd

Chartrand, the police department spokeswoman, on Friday also cited another policy, which she shared in the form of a screenshot by email. It was unclear if the policy was included in the department policies posted online, which include nine categories, each with many sections.

That policy reads, in part:

“Officers will not fire at a moving vehicle, its tires, etc., with the intend of rendering it inoperable. However, this does not prohibit firing at the occupants of a vehicle when the occupants are using deadly force against the officer or others by means other than the vehicle itself”

“An officer threatened by an oncoming vehicle should move out of its path if possible,” the policy reads. “Officers may fire at a driver using a vehicle as a weapon when the officer is not reasonable able to move out of its path or when the vehicle is being used to assault another person who does not appear able to escape the vehicular assault.”

Henderson’s mother said that, because of her son’s race and size, he had been profiled by police in the past. So she understood why he felt afraid that night and wanted her to come to the traffic stop.

“He’s never committed a crime. He’s never gave me any trouble. He’s never been in the street, none of that,” Johnson told The Star.

“I want it to be known they killed an innocent man.”

The Star’s Anna Spoerre and Glenn E. Rice contributed to this report.