Atlanta top cop quits as black man killed
Protesters burn down Wendy’s, block interstate highway
nWASHINGTON : The police chief of Atlanta, Georgia has resigned after an officer shot dead a black man at a parking lot of a Wendy’s restaurant, even as protests against racism in the US continued following the death of George Floyd.
Rayshard Brooks, 27, reportedly fell asleep in his vehicle and failed a sobriety test on Friday night. Videos of the incident showed him struggling with two officers, one of whom shot him as he fled. The police said Brooks had wrestled away a taser gun.
“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force,” Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a news briefing on Saturday, where she announced the resignation of the police chief Erika Shields.
Protestors blocked a major interstate highway and set fire to the Wendy’s restaurant. Garett Wolfe, the officer who is alleged to have to shot Brooks, has been fired.
Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat who gained national prominence running for governor in 2018, tweeted that “sleeping in a drive-thru must not end in death.”
The Atlanta incident, coming as it did amid protests over the custody death of Floyd, is likely to fuel more nationwide tensions over institutional racism and police tactics.
Demonstrators turned up outside West Point, the elite academy in New York for future US military leaders, where President
Donald Trump gave the commencement address, in which he did not mention Brooks.
In Palmdale, California, hundreds of people on Saturday marched seeking a probe into the death of Robert Fuller, 24, who was found hanging from a tree on Wednesday near city hall. The protesters marched from where the body was found to a sheriff’s station, with many carrying signs that said “Justice for Robert Fuller.” Authorities said the death appeared to be a suicide, but an autopsy was planned. The city said there were no outdoor cameras that could have recorded what happened.
Fuller’s death has brought to light the death of another black man found hanging from a tree on May 31 in Victorville, a desert city 72 km east of Palmdale. A sheriff’s spokeswoman, Jodi Miller, told Victor Valley News foul play was not suspected in 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch’s death but the man’s family said they were concerned it will be ruled a suicide to avoid further attention.
Statues of confederate figures and colonisers continued to be toppled around the country. Protestors on Saturday pulled down a statue of John Mcdonogh, a wealthy 19th century slave owner in Louisiana, loaded the torn down part on two trucks and dumped them in the Mississippi River.
The toppling of Mcdonogh’s bust was yet another episode in the rapidly unfolding movement to take down Confederate statues in the US and reassess monuments to colonisers and slave traders worldwide.