‘When does it stop?’ Slain man’s family makes tearful plea
Pleading through tears Monday, the family of a black man killed by Atlanta police outside a drive-thru demanded changes in the criminal justice system and called on protesters to refrain from violence amid heightened tensions across the U.S. three weeks after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
An autopsy found that 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back late Friday by a white officer who was trying to arrest him at a fast food restaurant for being intoxicated behind the wheel of his car. Brooks tried to flee after wrestling with officers and grabbing a stun gun from one of them.
“Not only are we hurt, we are angry,” said Chassidy Evans, Brooks’ niece. “When does it stop? We’re not only pleading for justice. We’re pleading for change.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Monday that she was ordering changes to police use-of
ATLANTA —
Tayla Myree sets out flowers on a shrine at a burned Wendy’s on Sunday in Atlanta. Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old black man, was fatally shot by a white Atlanta police officer outside the Wendy’s on Friday night. force policies, including requiring that officers receive continuous training in how to deescalate situations and use those techniques before taking action that could be fatal. She said she also was requiring officers to intervene if they see a colleague using excessive force.
The mayor said that after
Brooks’ shooting, it was clear Atlanta did not have “another day, another minute, another hour to waste” in changing police practices.
Other cities nationwide are taking similar steps, and packages of police reforms have been proposed or are emerging in Congress.
About 20 of Brooks’ children, siblings, cousins and other family members sobbed at a news conference as over 1,000 people gathered not far away at an NAACP-LED protest outside the Georgia Capitol.
Floyd’s death May 25 after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into the black man’s neck touched off demonstrations and scattered violence across the U.S., and Brooks’ killing rekindled those protests in Atlanta. The Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned down over the weekend.
Evans said there was no reason for her uncle “to be shot and killed like trash in the street for falling asleep in a drive-thru.”
“Rayshard has a family who loves him who would have gladly come and got him so he would be here with us today,” she said.
Relatives described Brooks as a loving father of three daughters and a stepson who had a bright smile and a big heart and loved to dance. His oldest daughter learned her father was slain while celebrating her eighth birthday with cupcakes and friends, wearing a special dress as she waited for Brooks to take her skating, said Justin Miller, an attorney for the family.
“There’s no justice that can ever make me feel happy about what’s been done,” said Tomika Miller, Brooks’ widow. “I can never get my husband back . ... I can never tell my daughter he’s coming to take you skating or for swimming lessons.”
She asked those demonstrating to “keep the protesting peaceful,” saying: “We want to keep his name positive and great.”
Several Democratic lawmakers joined protesters and called for Georgia to pass reforms including the repeal of the state’s citizen’s arrest and stand-yourground laws.
While some Republican leaders pushed back against swift action on some proposals, GOP House Speaker David Ralston endorsed rapid passage of a hate-crimes law, telling lawmakers that failure to act would be “a stain on this state we can never wash away.”
Morgan Dudley, 18, skipped work to join the demonstration after her job kept her from joining protests following Floyd’s death three weeks ago.
“I was like, ‘You know what? This is not a trend. This is an actual problem that we’re facing,’” said Dudley, who is black.