Mourners bid farewell to Rayshard Brooks at historic Atlanta church
ATLANTA» Scores of mourners Tuesday paid their final respects to Rayshard Brooks at the Atlanta church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used to preach, taking part in a funeral filled with historical echoes and a tragic sense that Black America has been through this all too many times before.
“Rayshard Brooks is the latest high-profile casualty in the struggle for justice and a battle for the soul of America. This is about him, but it is so much bigger than him,” the Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, told the crowd, less than two weeks after the Black man was shot twice in the back by a white Atlanta police officer following a struggle in a fast-food parking lot.
Warnock recited a long list of names of Black people who died at the hands of police in recent years, including Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Philando Castile and George Floyd, lamenting: “Sadly we’ve gotten too much practice at this.”
Brooks’ widow, Tomika Miller, dressed in white, sat surrounded by family and friends. Former state lawmaker Stacey Abrams and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, both of whom have been mentioned as potential running mates for Democratic
presidential candidate Joe Biden, were among the mourners.
Most people dressed all in white, while some wore T-shirts with Brooks’ picture. Nearly everyone wore masks to protect against the coronavirus.
Brooks’ killing June 12 came amid weeks of turbulent and sometimes violent protests across the U.S. over Floyd’s death under a white Minneapolis officer’s knee on May 25. In the aftermath of Brooks’ death, the Atlanta police chief resigned, and protesters burned the Wendy’s restaurant.
As the funeral was underway, authorities announced the arrest of a suspect in the fire, 29-year-old Natalie White — according to her lawyer, the same woman Brooks described to police on the night he was shot as his girlfriend.
The lawyer, Drew Findling, said White was distraught over Brooks’ death but was “absolutely not responsible for the fire,” saying the blaze was already underway when she was seen on video approaching the restaurant.
White has been charged with first-degree arson, according to online jail records.
The deaths of Floyd and Brooks have led to a groundswell of protests against racial inequality, a movement to take down Confederate statues and other symbols, and demands for the dismantling of police departments or the shifting of their funding toward social services.
“We are here because individuals continue to hide behind badges and trainings and policies and procedures rather than regarding the humanity of others in general and Black lives specifically,” the Rev. Bernice King, the civil rights leader’s daughter, told the crowd at the funeral.
King, who was a child when her father was assassinated in 1968, told the mourners she was at the church for “what feels like an all-too-familiar moment.” She noted that Brooks’ death took place on the same date that NAACP leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in Mississippi in 1963 and Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in South Africa in 1964.
Police body-camera video showed Brooks, 27, and officers having a calm and cooperative conversation for more than 40 minutes. A struggle erupted when police tried to handcuff Brooks for being intoxicated behind the wheel of his car at a Wendy’s drive-thru. Brooks grabbed one of the officers’ Tasers and fired it in their direction as he ran away.
Officer Garrett Rolfe, 27, was charged with murder and jailed without bail. A second officer, Devin Brosnan, 26, was charged with aggravated assault, accused of stepping on Brooks’ shoulder as he lay dying on the pavement. Lawyers for both said their clients’ actions were justified.