America erupts again
Flames and fury after death of another black man at hands of police
A FAST food restaurant goes up in flames as anger boils over following the death of another black man at the hands of US police.
Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot dead on Friday night after being challenged by two white officers for falling asleep at the wheel of his car in the queue at the Wendy’s drive-through.
An initially good-natured conversation was recorded on police body cameras before shots were fired in what investigators described as a struggle over a police taser gun.
On Saturday around 150 demonstrators gathered outside the restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia – also blocking a nearby highway. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds but, as darkness fell, the building was set ablaze.
Television images showed it in flames for more than 45 minutes before fire crews arrived, protected by a line of police officers. By the time they put out the fire the restaurant was a charred ruin.
Earlier in the day the city’s police chief Erika Shields had resigned, while Garrett Rolfe, the officer who allegedly shot Mr Brooks, has been fired and the second officer, Devin Brosnan, has been placed on office duties.
Bodycam footage released by the police department showed the two officers carrying out a breathalyser test on Mr Brooks before trying to arrest and handcuff him. At that point the camera fell off, but dashcam footage from their patrol car shows the pair struggling with Mr Brooks on the ground.
He grabbed an officer’s taser then broke free and ran off. One officer used his taser on Mr Brooks before all three ran out of the frame and gun shots were heard. Atlanta’s mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said: ‘I do not believe this was a justified use of deadly force’ – before saying she had accepted the police chief’s resignation as the city tries to ‘rebuild trust so desperately needed’. Stacey Abrams, a Democrat politician who ran for state governor in 2018, tweeted: ‘Sleeping in a drive-thru must not end in death.’
Protests ignited by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25 have continued across the US.
In Palmdale, California, hundreds marched to demand an investigation into the death of Robert Fuller, 24, who was found hanging from a tree last week.
Authorities said the death appeared to be a suicide before a post-mortem examination was carried out, prompting questions
‘Unjustified use of deadly force’
over the true circumstances of the death. And in an echo of scenes in Bristol over a week ago, protesters in New Orleans toppled the bust of a slave owner who left part of his fortune to the city’s schools and rolled it into the Mississippi River.
As demonstrations continued around the world, police in Paris fired tear gas and blocked antiracist protesters and far-Right activists from confronting each other after 15,000 marched through the French capital, led by supporters of Adama Traore, who died in police custody in 2016.