LAPD Offers Revised Policy After Teen Shot

The change would prohibit officers from firing at a moving vehicle "unless the officer or another person is being threatened with deadly force by means other than the moving vehicle," Bratton said in a memo to police commissioners.

He asked the civilian Police Commission to approve the policy at its meeting Tuesday.

Police departments in major cities, including Boston, Cincinnati and Detroit, in recent years have adopted similar restrictions.

The policy came under scrutiny following the fatal shooting Sunday of Devin Brown, an eighth-grader at a magnet school for gifted youth.

Brown crashed a 1990 Toyota Camry that was reported stolen. His 14-year-old male passenger ran away. The Camry then backed into a patrol car, damaging it.

After a pursuit, an officer fired 10 rounds at the vehicle, killing Brown at the scene.

Bob Baker, president of the police union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said he opposes changing the existing policy. Current policy generally prohibits firing at a moving vehicle but allows deadly force as a last resort.

"You can't legislate what is going to happen in the streets. Our work is highly unpredictable and usually dictated by the actions of suspects," Baker said. "You can't take away all discretion from a police officer to try and save a community member's life or his own life or his partner's life."

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