Atlanta police chief resigns after officer kills man during arrest
The police chief in the US city of Atlanta resigned after an officer shot dead a black man during an arrest, the mayor said at the weekend, with the new killing injecting fresh anger into protests against racism and police brutality.
Images on local media showed hundreds of protesters in the streets on Saturday and flames engulfing the Wendy’s restaurant where 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was killed.
The officer who shot Brooks was dismissed on Saturday and identified by Atlanta police as Garrett Rolfe.
The second officer was placed on administrative duty, according to ABC News.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms — who has been touted as a potential running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — earlier announced the resignation of police chief Erika Shields.
Wendy’s employees called police on Friday night to complain that Brooks was asleep in his car and blocking other customers on the premises, an official report said.
He had failed a sobriety test and resisted when police tried to arrest him, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
Surveillance video showed “that during a physical struggle with officers, Brooks obtained one of the officer’s Tasers and began to flee,” the report said.
“Officers pursued Brooks on foot and during the chase, Brooks turned and pointed the Taser at the officer. The officer fired his weapon, striking Brooks,” it said.
Brooks had been taken to hospital but had died after surgery, it said, adding that one officer had been injured.
An attorney acting for the dead man’s family said disproportionate force had been used in the confrontation.
“In Georgia a Taser is not a deadly weapon — that’s the law,” Chris Stewart said.
“Support came, in I think two minutes.
“He would have been boxed in and trapped.
“Why did you have to kill him?”
“[The officer] had other options than shooting a man in the back.”
Brooks left four children, Stewart said, and had celebrated the birthday of his eightyear-old girl earlier on Friday.
His death is the 48th shooting involving an officer the
Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been asked to investigate this yea , according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.
Fifteen of those incidents were fatal.
The unrest comes as the US faces a historic reckoning on systemic racism, with mass civil unrest ignited by the May 25 killing of another AfricanAmerican man, George Floyd, while in police custody.
Police chief Shields had worked for Atlanta’s police department for more than two decades.
“Because of her desire that Atlanta be a model of what meaningful reform should look like across this country, she has offered to immediately step aside as police chief,” the mayor said.