Killing of Black man by white officer sparks protests
Atlanta police kill Black man at drive-thru
The United States was hit by a fresh wave of protests over the weekend following the killing of a 27-year-old black man by a white police officer in Atlanta on Friday night.
The shooting of Rayshard Brooks, 27, brought demonstrators onto the streets. On Saturday night, protesters blocked a freeway and the Wendy’s fast-food restaurant where Brooks was shot dead was burned down.
In California, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to demand an investigation into the death of another black man, Robert Fuller, whose body was found hanging from a tree last week.
They called for an independent autopsy, challenging the official verdict that Fuller had killed himself.
The death of Brooks dashed hopes that the protests across the world sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis were dissipating, at least in the U.S.
Police were called to the Wendy’s drive-thru after complaints that Brooks had fallen asleep at the wheel and was blocking one of the lanes.
According to video footage, what began as a routine breath test — with no sign of aggression from either the police or Brooks — escalated after the officers attempted to arrest him for drunk driving.
During the struggle, Brooks fled, having grabbed a police taser. Then he appeared to turn and aim the taser at the pursuing officers. One of them, Garrett Rolfe, opened fire. Brooks died in hospital after surgery.
As tension mounted, city police chief Erika Shields resigned on Saturday night. Officer Rolfe was sacked yesterday and his colleague, Devin Brosnan, placed on administrative leave.
Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has been tipped as a possible presidential running mate for Joe Biden, condemned the shooting.
“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force,” she said.
Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democrat and another potential Biden running mate, tweeted: “Sleeping in a drivethru must not end in death.”
The latest killings have renewed the focus on police tactics in the U.S., with senior politicians in both parties calling for reforms.
“It’s another reminder that police can’t continue to be judge, jury and executioner,” said Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar on CNN’S State of the Union on Sunday.
On the same program James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, called for a ban on chokeholds as a method of restraint.
A ban on chokeholds was included in a police reform bill passed by the Democrat-controlled House last week.
It is likely to form part of a police reform bill that will be introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate this week by Tim Scott, the African American senator for South Carolina.
Some Democrats are pushing for radical action including “defunding” — or scrapping — police departments.
However, Biden has distanced himself from that, as did Abrams, who said supporters were being drawn into a “false idea.”
Speaking on ABC’S This Week, she said, “We need reformation of how police officers do their jobs.”
In Washington, D.C., the newly-named Black Lives Matter Plaza was turned into a church Sunday morning, with thousands of mostly African American churchgoers praying, protesting and dancing near the White House after marching from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The prayer march, vigil and rally were organized by regional NAACP branches and Alexandria’s historic Alfred Street Baptist Church, which has roots in the time of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.
It was one of the largest faith-based events in the more than two weeks of protests that have consumed the nation’s capital since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May, and it was the first big public event organized by black clergy. Organizers said that was due to extra caution in the African American community, which has been hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
In Atlanta, police offered a $10,000 reward and published photos of what appeared to be a masked white woman as they sought the people who burned down the Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was killed Friday night.
As demonstrators in Atlanta took to the streets and chanted for the officers involved to be criminally charged, at one point late on Saturday blocking traffic on a nearby interstate highway, the Wendy’s went up in flames.