Atlanta praised for response to shooting
EXPERTS HAIL SWIFT MOVES IN WAKE OF POLICE SHOOTING
Atlanta police on Sunday quickly released body-camera and other footage that captured the shooting death of a black man by a white officer who was swiftly fired — moves that policing experts said could help defuse antiracism protests that were reignited by the shooting.
Atlanta police announced that an officer, Garrett Rolfe, had been fired after he fatally shot Rayshard Brooks, 27, on Friday night, and another officer, Devin Brosnan, had been placed on administrative duty. On Saturday, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had called for the immediate firing of the officer who opened fire on Brooks and announced that she had accepted the resignation of Police Chief Erika Shields.
“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force,” Bottoms said.
Roughly 150 protesters marched Saturday night around the Wendy’s restaurant outside where Brooks was shot, reigniting demonstrations that had largely simmered in the Georgia capital nearly three weeks after George Floyd, another black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck. Both Rolfe and Brosnan are white.
The firing of Rolfe and the quick release of the video to the public could go a long way toward easing tensions in the city, said Andy Harvey, a veteran law enforcement officer who is now a police chief in Ennis, Texas, and the author of books and training curriculum on community policing.
“Transparency today is a whole different ball game. It’s what the community expects,” Harvey said. “We have to always be open about the good, the bad and the ugly. Not just the good. I think it actually builds trust and confidence when we’re open about the ugly as well.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that Brooks, who was seen on body camera video sleeping in a car blocking the Wendy’s drive thru, failed a sobriety test and was shot in a struggle over a police Taser.
Cedric Alexander, the former public safety director of Dekalb County, Georgia, who now works as a police consultant, said the shooting will undoubtedly lead to questions about how officers might have defused the situation.
“Here’s a man who took it upon himself to pull off the road to take a nap,” Alexander said. “Could they have given him a ride home, could they have called him an Uber, and let him sleep it off later, as opposed to arresting him? Now that does not in any kind of way excuse Mr. Brooks for resisting arrest. But the question is: Are there other protocols that police could have taken?”
“And people will ask the question, had he been white and pulled onto the side of the road to take a nap and sleep it off, would they have given him a ride home?”
The Wendy’s was set aflame at one point Saturday night, although the fire was out before midnight. Atlanta police said Sunday that 36 people had been arrested in connection with the protests, but gave no further details. A makeshift memorial had been erected outside the restaurant Sunday morning.
In Washington, D.C., meanwhile, a group of interfaith leaders held a prayer vigil Sunday outside St. John’s Church near the White
House, where President Donald Trump held a June 1 appearance that sparked criticism after protesters were forcibly cleared from the area.
The faith leaders, representing multiple Christian denominations as well as Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh faiths, addressed a crowd of several dozen at the edge of the recently named Black Lives Matter Plaza with a message of racial justice.