The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)

Crowds mourn Rayshard Brooks at storied church in Atlanta

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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 fastfood 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.

She noted ruefully that the killing took place in Atlanta, the “Black mecca“and “the city that is supposed to be ‘too busy to hate.’”

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.

But in a powerful echo of her father’s “I Have a Dream” speech, she declared: “Rayshard Brooks’ death will not be in vain because justice will roll down like waters and righteousn­ess like a mighty stream.”

 ?? Pool / Getty Images ?? Rochelle Gooden, Rayshard Brooks’ mother-in-law, speaks at his funeral in Ebenezer Baptist Church on Tuesday in Atlanta.
Pool / Getty Images Rochelle Gooden, Rayshard Brooks’ mother-in-law, speaks at his funeral in Ebenezer Baptist Church on Tuesday in Atlanta.

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