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What we know so far about the killing of Rayshard Brooks - Atlanta Magazine

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Rayshard Brooks Protest
Protestors gather Saturday outside the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was killed by an APD officer.

Photograph by Sean Keenan

On the evening of Friday, June 12, 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by an Atlanta Police Department officer in the parking lot of the Wendy’s restaurant on University Avenue in Peoplestown. Here is what we know so far; we will update this story as more news comes in.

What happened to Rayshard Brooks:

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), who is investigating the case, the Atlanta Police Department arrived at the Wendy’s at 125 University Avenue to respond to a complaint of a man asleep in his vehicle in the drive-thru, blocking it and causing customers to have to drive around the vehicle to pick up their orders. APD conducted a field sobriety test on the man, later identified as Rayshard Brooks, 27, of Atlanta, who failed, according to GBI. Officers then attempted to place him in custody. “During the arrest, the male subject resisted and a struggle ensued. The officer deployed a Taser. Witnesses report that during the struggle the male subject grabbed and was in possession of the Taser.” GBI initially reported that Brooks was shot in the struggle over the Taser.

However, cellphone video circulating widely on social media, allegedly from the scene, appears to show a struggle between Brooks and police, the Taser deployment, and Brooks running away as an officer deploys a Taser on him. Then, gunshots are heard, and Brooks is seen on the ground.

At a 3:45 p.m. Saturday press conference at GBI headquarters, GBI Director Vic Reynolds gave a short statement to the press, clarifying that while the GBI’s initial analysis of the incident had been based off of body cam footage, after reviewing Wendy’s surveillance footage and the social media video, they now believe that after Brooks took a Taser from one of the officers, he ran “about 5, 6, 7 parking spaces” from the officers while holding the Taser. Then, Reynolds said, Brooks turned, and “it appears to the [naked] eye that he points the Taser at the Atlanta officer. At that point, the Atlanta officer reaches down and retrieves his weapon from his holster, discharges it, strikes Mr. Brooks there on the parking lot.” Reynolds says that information was corroborated by a witness and that the Wendy’s surveillance video has not yet been digitally enhanced but that GBI plans to do so.

The GBI then released the 46-minute Wendy’s surveillance video. At about 28:32 (10:22 p.m. according to the video’s timestamp), Brooks runs into the frame with the APD officer running behind him. Brooks is seen falling to the ground at about 28:38, about 5-6 seconds later. The video is available here. (It can be slowed down using the gear button on the right side of the player.)

During the Q&A portion of the press conference, Reynolds described the video again, saying, “[It appears that] he is fleeing from Atlanta Police officers, [and] that as he is fleeing, he turns back over his shoulder with what appears to the naked eye to be this Taser that a witness has told us they saw the individual have that belonged to one of the officers . . . the Atlanta officer literally reaches down to get his service weapon and as he gets his weapon, Mr. Brooks begins turning his body away from him, I presume to flee, and it looks like that’s when the discharge of the weapon goes off then.”

The GBI then updated their statement of what happened next, acknowledging the social media video and Wendy’s surveillance. They also said that “an earlier account of this incident was based on the officer’s body cam which was knocked off during the physical struggle, preventing the capture of the entire shooting incident.”

After he was shot, Brooks was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he died after undergoing surgery.

Just after midnight Sunday morning, APD confirmed that the officer who killed Brooks had been fired and identified him as Garrett Rolfe. The other officer involved, Devin Bronsan, has been placed on administrative leave.

Protestors were on the scene outside the Wendy’s shortly after the shooting and continued protesting outside the fast food restaurant all day Saturday. In the evening, protestors blocked I-75/85 at the University Avenue exit and peacefully demonstrated; APD shut down traffic in both directions on the interstate. Some protesters on the interstate were arrested. The AJC reported that protestors broke windows and threw fireworks in the Wendy’s, which caught fire at about 9:30 p.m. Protestors then peacefully demonstrated outside the Atlanta Police Department Zone 3 precinct on Cherokee Avenue.

APD Chief Erika Shields resigns:

Just after 5 p.m., Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms held a press conference at City Hall. As she described what happened to Rayshard Brooks, she noted that Brooks appeared to fire the Taser at the APD officer as he was running away, after which the officer shot Brooks. “While there may be debate whether this was an appropriate use of deadly force, I firmly believe there is a clear distinction between what you can do and what you should do,” the mayor said. “I do not believe this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer.” She clarified she was only calling for termination of the officer who fired his weapon and that the other officer involved had been placed on administrative duty.

The mayor also announced the resignation of Chief Erika Shields, saying, “There has been a disconnect with what our expectations are and should be as it relates with interactions with our officers and the communities in which they are entrusted to protect. Chief Erika Shields have been a solid member of APD for over two decades and has a deep and abiding love for the people of Atlanta. And because of her desire that Atlanta be a model of what meaningful reform should look like across this country, Chief Shields has offered to immediately step aside as police chief so that the city may move forward with urgency in rebuilding the trust so desperately needed throughout our communities.”

Deputy Chief Rodney Bryant is now the interim chief of police and a nationwide search for Shields’s replacement will commence. Shields, who became chief under former Mayor Kasim Reed in December 2016, will not leave the APD entirely but her role has yet to be determined. Bottoms says an advisory committee to examine APD’s force procedures has already convened and expects feedback in two weeks and final recommendations in 45 days.

Earlier in the day, the Georgia NAACP called for Shields’s resignation. Brooks’s killing follows two high-profile APD incidents in recent weeks: two college students were tased and forcibly removed from their car on May 30, and dental hygienist said collarbone was broken after being bodyslammed by an APD officer in Buckhead on May 29.

The family’s attorneys hold a press conference:

Around 8 p.m. Saturday, L. Chris Stewart and Justin Miller, two of the attorneys representing the family of Rayshard Brooks, held a press conference. Stewart opened his remarks by saying that they had just returned a few days ago from George Floyd’s funeral. His firm represents Floyd’s daughter Gianna, is council in the Ahmaud Arbery case, and has represented the families of Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Gregory Towns, and Deaundre Phillips, among others killed by police.

Stewart said the “one thing that nobody can disagree with” about Brooks’s killing is that “it shouldn’t have happened.”

“In Georgia, a Taser is not a deadly weapon,” Stewart continued. “That’s the law. That’s what the cops are trained to do. I’ve had cases where officers have used Tasers on victims, and they argue with us in court that Tasers aren’t deadly. That’s the case law here . . . You cannot have it both ways. You can’t say [Brooks] ran off with a weapon that could kill somebody when you say it’s not deadly.” Stewart questioned why the police didn’t use other methods of restraining Brooks, such as “boxing in.” He also said police had been given “leeway” to use lethal force for too long.

Stewart said that witnesses claimed officers “put on plastic gloves and picked up their shell casings after they killed [Brooks] before rending aid.” And in watching video of the incident, he said the legal team “counted 2 minutes and 16 seconds before [officers] even checked [Brooks’s] pulse.” He also said he was told by witnesses some details that contradict the GBI’s official statement. He said some witnesses said there was no sobriety test administered. “There was no count to 100 or whatever it is, or walk this line. [The witnesses said police and Brooks] were just talking, and it seemed to be a decent conversation. And then all of a sudden one of the officers grabbed him and told him he was under arrest,” Stewart said. Stewart also said that Brooks was “not blocking the [drive-thru] line.”

“Want to know how this could have been avoided?” Stewart said, “Talk to him. Talk. Hey Buddy, you fell asleep in line, you okay? Why don’t you pull your car over there and call an Uber. And then you walk over, and then you leave. Why is that so hard for police officers? A conversation. He wasn’t doing anything crazy or violent or harming anyone. Hey buddy, I think you’ve had something to drink . . . pull over there, call an Uber. I guarantee you that happens hundreds of time a night in college towns with young white kids or other places in America. But we don’t get that benefit of the doubt.”

Miller said if the officer had been more empathetic, Brooks likely wouldn’t have died. “Policing in this country and in this city needs to change to something more empathetic, to something more community-based,” he said. He cited training, leadership, and fear as the three failures in the situation. “We need to keep pushing. We need to let everyone know this is unacceptable and we’re not going to just move on to the next tragedy,” he said.

Stewart and Miller addressed why they think Brooks ran from police. “If you’re sleeping in your car because you’re trying to [sleep] something off and you get officers knocking on your window hard, the current climate of police officer and black male interaction is not the best,” Miller said. “So that might scare you at that time of night. So, yes, you stand up and you’re talking to them, and they’re telling you they want you to do something, that might not be what you want to do at that time. So, yes, he tried to get away, that’s what it looked like. But they would not let him get away, they were hell-bent on stopping him. And they stopped him.” Stewart also added that officers did not draw a weapon in the “tussle” on the ground but instead waited until Brooks ran. “Their justification went out the door after they let him run,” Stewart said.

Stewart said that Brooks worked at a “tortilla place” and had been celebrating his 8-year-old daughter’s birthday on Friday. Brooks has two other daughters, ages 3 and 1, as well as a 13-year-old stepson. Stewart said the house they visited on Saturday was full of family “that love him more than life.” Miller added that Brooks was supposed to take his 8-year-old skating on Saturday as part of her birthday celebrations. “She had her birthday dress on because she was waiting for her dad to come pick her up to take her to go skating. Yesterday, her and her dad went, she got her nails done and her toes done, they got something to eat, and today she was waiting on that. So while we were over there they had a birthday party for her, 8th birthday today with cupcakes, while we were sitting there talking with her mom about why her dad’s not coming home.”

What are people saying:

The Fulton County District Attorney’s office released this statement:

Atlanta City Council member Antonio Brown, who represents District 3 (Vine City, English Avenue, Atlantic Station), went to the scene Friday night and gave an interview to 11 Alive. “This is a reflection of what is truly transpiring in our country. It’s not just the city of Atlanta; people are outraged at what is transpiring right now, and I think what’s important is that information is properly discriminated about what has occurred,” he said.

He later tweeted,

Atlanta City Council member Joyce Sheperd, who represents District 12, where Brooks was shot, spoke with protestors outside the Wendy’s on Saturday. “Running away from the police officer, he don’t have a gun, is there any reason for them to shoot him? No. So my position is that they got to go,” Sheperd told protestors.

Andre Dickens, Atlanta City Council Post 3 At-Large:

Rep. Hank Johnson, U.S. House GA District 4:

Bernice King:

Stacey Abrams:

T.I. walked in one of Saturday’s protests:

Lil Yachty:

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