Breacking News: Atlanta Police Chief Resigns After Officer Shoots and Kills a Black Man
Video shows fatal officer-involved shooting in Atlanta, Video from a witness and surveillance footage show the events leading up to the deadly police shooting of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks at an Atlanta fast food restaurant.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced the resignation of Chief Erika Shields, a member of the Atlanta Police Department for more than two decades, and said Assistant Chief Rodney Bryant would serve as interim chief until a permanent leader was hired.
"Chief Shields has offered to immediately step aside as police chief so that the city may move forward with urgency in rebuilding the trust desperately needed in our communities," Bottoms said.
Shields said later that "it is time for the city to move forward."
"Out of a deep and abiding love for this City and this department, I offered to step aside as police chief," she said in a statement. "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."
The Georgia NAACP had called for Bottoms to relieve Shields of duty.
Brooks was killed Friday night after two police officers responded to a report of a man sleeping in a vehicle in the drive-thru, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting.
Lawyers for Brooks' family said he was the father of three daughters and a stepson and worked in a tortilleria.
Authorities said Brooks failed a field sobriety test administered at the Wendy's and that he had been under investigation by Atlanta police for a suspected DUI in the incident.
As police attempted to arrest Brooks, he resisted and a struggle ensued, according to the GBI.
“During the course of that confrontation, Mr. Brooks was able to secure from one of the Atlanta officers, his Taser," said Vic Reynolds, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The incident was captured on video and shows Brooks appearing to run from the officers with the Taser in his hand, Reynolds said.
After running a short distance, Brooks "turns around and it appears to the eye that he points the Taser at the Atlanta officer," the director said.
"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, and he goes down.”
Reynolds said a witness was able to corroborate the information.
Body and dash camera video from Rolfe and Brosnan doesn't show the moment of the shooting but it shows Rolfe questioning Brooks, speaking with Brosnan and grappling with Brooks as both officers take him to the ground and struggle to detain him.
An officer off-camera explains that he responded to reports of a man asleep at the wheel in the Wendy's drive-thru and that he asked the suspect to move his car, which he did.
"I woke you up then I asked you to move your car over there," the officer says.
Rolfe's DUI interview and field sobriety testing is laborious and lasts more than 25 minutes as he asks the same questions over and over.
Brooks tells officers he parked at the Wendy's, went drinking with a friend who had picked him up and was dropped off there because he was hungry. He said he planned to reunite with the friend at a hotel.
But he can't remember where he is, initially saying he's on Old Dixie Highway, a road that Rolfe says doesn't exist in Atlanta.
Brooks tells the officers he went to visit his mother's gravesite earlier in the day.
Rolfe has Brooks undergo the horizontal gaze nystagmus test in which the officer focuses on the suspect's eyes as they follow his finger. It goes on for an inordinate amount of time as Rolfe moves his finger quite slowly from side to side and repeats the motion multiple times.
The questioning returns, and Brooks can't seem to remember if he had margaritas or daiquiris, nor how many.
"I can walk home," he says at one point. "I just don’t want to be in violation of anybody."
"Let me go, I'm ready to go," he adds, words that appear to be some of Brooks' last.
As officers begin to take Brooks into custody, he jerks away and the three grapple with each other on the ground. The shooting is out of view of two patrol vehicles' dash cameras, and the officers' body cameras appear to black out or detach and focus on the sky during the grappling.
The officers are heard saying, "Stop fighting," "Hands off the Taser," and "Got my f---ing Taser," before three gunshots ring out.
Brooks was taken to a hospital where he died after undergoing surgery.
"Of extreme concern in the murder of Rayshard Brooks is the fact that he was shot in the back multiple times while fleeing," said attorneys L. Chris Stewart and Justin Miller, who are representing the Brooks family, in a statement.
Stewart, an Atlanta-based civil rights attorney and member of the legal team representing the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, 25, who was fatally shot in February while jogging in Georgia, said Brooks should not have faced deadly force because he only appeared to have a Taser.
Stewart said during a news conference that police often "argue with us in court that Tasers aren’t deadly, that Tasers aren’t harmful. That’s the case law here."
Citing witnesses, Stewart said police did not immediately aid Brooks.
"They went and picked up their shell casings," he said. "I wonder why."
Miller, referring to the May 25 death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police, lamented that another police killing of a Black man is drawing national attention.
"We’re not asking for protesters not to go out and protest," he said. "We need to keep pushing."
Earlier in the evening demonstrators blocked a freeway near the Wendy's.
The officers involved in the shooting have been removed from duty pending the outcome of the investigation, according to WXIA. Their names have not been released.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr. said in a statement Saturday that the GBI will turn over its findings to his department, but that his office has already launched its own "intense, independent investigation of the matter."
"Lastly, our thoughts and our sympathies are extended to the family of Rayshard Brooks as we must not forget that this investigation is centered upon a loss of life."
In cellphone video posted on social media by people who said they were at the scene, Brooks appears to be on the ground struggling with two officers before getting up and running away.
Rayshard Brooks was killed a day before he planned to celebrate his daughter's birthday
ReplyDeleteRayshard Brooks' 8-year-old daughter had her birthday dress on Saturday morning waiting for her dad to come pick her up and take her skating to celebrate her birthday, family attorneys say.
Her dad never came home. He was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer at a Wendy's parking lot in Atlanta Friday night. Since then, the officer who shot Brooks was terminated and a second officer was placed on administrative duty. The Atlanta police chief stepped down from her position.
Brooks, 27, has three daughters who are 1, 2 and 8 years old, according to the attorneys. He also has a 13-year-old stepson, they said.
His oldest daughter was having her birthday party Saturday, Brooks' family attorney Justin Miller said in a news conference Saturday.
Rayshard Brooks was a father to three daughters and a step-son
"They had a birthday party for her ... with cupcakes," Miller said. "While we were sitting there talking to her mom about why her dad's not coming home."
"We still celebrated," Brooks' widow, Tomika Miller, told CNN Monday. "It's what her dad would have wanted."
A day earlier, the young girl had enjoyed other celebrations with her father. Brooks took her to get her nails done, Miller said, and then they went and ate together.
The two had also spent time at an arcade Friday, family attorney L. Chris Stewart said.
"We sat with (Brooks' children) today and watched them play and laugh and be oblivious to the facts that their dad was murdered on camera," Stewart said in the news conference.
"A scene that we keep repeating as we watched Gianna Floyd play in Houston, oblivious to that her dad was knelt on and murdered. How many more examples will there be?"
A loving father
ReplyDeleteTomika Miller told the children their father wouldn't be coming home, and that "he's in a better place," trying to keep it positive and keep her tears to herself, she said.
She described a loving and devoted husband and father who couldn't deny his children anything, especially the girls.
"They got him wrapped around their fingers," Tomika Miller said.
The couple's relationship, she said, was a "friendship no one could break."
Brooks "always kept my spirits up," Tomika Miller said. "He always pushed me to be better," helping her develop mentally, spiritually and emotionally, she said.
'Brothers and sisters that love him more than life'
ReplyDeleteStewart says Brooks worked at "a tortilla place" and was extremely loved by family.
"We have more family members at that house today than I could count," the attorney said. "A ton of brothers and sisters that love him more than life."
One of Brooks' older cousins, Decatur Redd, spoke to reporters Saturday and said he never expected he would have a similar situation land so close to home.
"I don't know how to do this because I never knew that I was going to have to do this," a visibly distraught Redd told the crowd.
Redd said he has seen videos of Friday night's shooting that have been circulating on social media. It was the worst thing he could wake up to, knowing Brooks' whole family watched those same moments.
"We've been watching this happen for so many years, with young black boys around the country just dying in vain -- I just don't want that to continue and keep happening like that," Redd said.
"I didn't think it would hit right here, man. I thought this city was better than that. They've got to answer. Somebody's gotta say something," Redd said, "We need to at least know that the city is with us."
When seeing something like George Floyd's death, the black man who died during an arrest in Minneapolis, Brooks would cry, his wife said.
"Even though he looks tough, he was a big cry baby," Tomika Miller said.
"I just don't understand why it's this way. What if that was me," or our son, Brooks would say, according to Tomika Miller.
What happened outside an Atlanta Wendy's
ReplyDeleteOfficers were responding to a call Friday night about a man sleeping in a vehicle at the Wendy's drive-thru, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement. When officers arrived, they gave Brooks a sobriety test, which he failed. The agency said Brooks resisted arrest and struggled for an officer's Taser, which he got ahold of.
CNN obtained two videos that seemed to show the man's last moments.
In a surveillance video released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Brooks is seen running away from officers and seems to point a stun gun back before he is shot.
A second video, shot by an eyewitness, shows two officers struggling with Brooks. He breaks free and starts running with what appears to be a stun gun in his right hand. It appears one of the officers fires their stun gun at Brooks three times as he runs away. Three shots are heard out of frame shortly afterward.
The GBI said Brooks was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the status of one of the officers involved in Rayshard Brooks' death. The officer has been placed on administrative duty.