Rayshard Brooks shooting death: Atlanta white cops shoot ‘unarmed’ black man resisting arrest at a Wendy’s Drive Through as protests erupt along with Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigning.
Disconcert has come to the fore following the revelation of video showing the shooting death of a ‘black man’ at the hands of Atlanta police at a Wendy’s Drive Through, Friday night.
Atlanta police were called to the fast food outlet on a complaint that a man was sleeping in a car blocking the drive-thru lane as customers waited in line. Police say the man, Rayshard Brooks, 27, failed a field sobriety test and then began to fight as the officers tried to arrest him.
In one video footage caught by a bystander, Brooks is seen grappling with two officers on the pavement, throwing punches, and grabbing one of the officer’s tasers. The other officer fires his taser at Brooks, which appears to have no effect, and Brooks sprints away.
A second video shows Brooks fleeing across the parking lot from officers, and turning and pointing something at the police, which the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said was the stolen police taser.
An officer then drops the taser that he had fired at Brooks, retrieves his service gun from its holster, and fires at Brooks. Three gunshots are heard in succession.
#BREAKING Large crowd gathering outside a Wendy’s in #Atlanta following an officer involved shooting. Police allegedly fatally shot an unarmed black man in the parking lot around 11:30pm. So far, they have only confirmed an officer-involved shooting. Few details. #AtlantaProtests pic.twitter.com/HHgi899Kj2
— Eric Wasserman 🦆 “WASS” (@EricWasserman1) June 13, 2020
‘Wendy’s is the new ground zero’
The shooting comes amid international protests of police brutality and racism spurred by a recent spate of deaths of unarmed black suspects, most recently George Floyd in Minneapolis.
‘Another man was taken right at this spot,’ Gerald Griggs, an attorney and a vice president of Atlanta’s NAACP chapter who had joined upwards of 150 demonstrators outside of the Wendy’s outlet told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
He called the Wendy’s parking lot ‘the new ground zero.’
‘The people are upset,‘ Griggs said.
GBI released video that shows the moment Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by an Atlanta Police officer at a Wendys on University Ave last night. Police say Brooks had taken an officer’s taser and pointed it at the officer as he ran. pic.twitter.com/1G8fn03gFV
— Matt Johnson (@MattWSB) June 13, 2020
‘They want to know why their dear brother Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed when he was merely asleep on the passenger side and not doing anything.’
Even though Brooks struggled with officers, Griggs said, ‘they could have used nonlethal force to take him down.’
‘Have we learned absolutely nothing? NOTHING?’ one Twitter user, @J264B, posted. ‘In what world should deadly force ever be used in this situation?’
Officers involved remain un-named as investigation is now launched
The shooting incident led to Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigning her post over the weekend.
Shields, the ousted police chief, said in a statement: ‘For more than two decades, I have served alongside some of the finest men and women in the Atlanta Police Department. Out of a deep and abiding love for this City and this department, I offered to step aside as police chief.’
‘APD has my full support, and Mayor Bottoms has my support on the future direction of this department. I have faith in the Mayor, and it is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve,’ Shields continued.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Saturday released a press release saying that the agency was probing the shooting at the Atlanta Police Department’s request.
Witness video of the shooting is under review, the GBI said on Twitter.
Once its investigation is complete, the case will be turned over to the Fulton County District Attorney´s Office for review.
This is the 48th police-involved shooting that the GBI has investigated this year, according to WSB-TV. For the year 2019, the GBI investigated a total of 84 police shootings. Of note, the GBI does not investigate every police shooting, (it only investigated when requested by a police dept) meaning that potentially there could be even higher police shootings of suspects.
The officers involved in the shooting was not identified. Once its investigation is complete, the case will be turned over to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office for review.
