Legal experts say conviction doubtful in Brooks shooting

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms mandated an overhaul of the city’s police department policies regarding use of force.

President Donald Trump pushed for law enforcement agencies to adopt higher standards on the use of deadly force.

Protests against police brutality and racial inequality across the country are in their third week and show no signs of ending.

Despite all that pressure, odds are the officer who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, 27, during a foot pursuit outside a Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta last week won’t spend a day inside a prison.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said Wednesday that former officer Garrett Rolfe – who shot a fleeing, Taser- wielding Brooks in the back – would be charged with felony murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, in addi

tion to nine other charges. Fellow officer Devin Brosnan faced lesser charges and agreed to testify.

Brooks’ death was ruled a homicide, but police officers are generally granted a fairly wide berth in their decisions to use force, especially in tense situations.

“From my experience as a professor, as a trainer of police officers and also as a former officer, I don’t see a conviction here,” Kalfani Ture, who teaches criminal justice at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut and worked in law enforcement in the Atlanta metropolitan area for five years, said before learning of Howard’s decision.

Body camera and surveillance video show the interaction between Brooks, who had fallen asleep inside his car at the Wendy’s drive- thru, and officers Rolfe and Devin Brosnan, who were cordial during most of the encounter.

When Brooks failed a breath test measuring his blood- alcohol level and Rolfe tried to handcuff him, Brooks resisted, overpowered the two officers, wrested away Brosnan’s Taser and ran away. Rolfe chased him and, just as Brooks aimed the Taser at him, shot him twice in the back.

12 killings since 2015, all Blacks

Protesters called this the latest example of a white police officer using excessive force on a Black man, and they want it rectified, but history sides with Ture’s assessment.

Brooks’ death is one of at least 12 caused by the Atlanta Police Department since 2015, according to a database of police shootings compiled by The Washington Post.

All those killed were Black people, and one officer was indicted.

That’s not surprising, according to Charles Rambo, a retired lieutenant commander from the Fulton County Sheriff ’ s Office. Police are rarely charged in use- of- force cases, and trials are even less common.

In those types of incidents, Rambo said, internal affairs investigations begin almost immediately. The officer’s supervisor is also responsible for investigating how the officer reacted, what happened at the crime scene and other details surrounding the case.

The investigation is then presented to the chief of police.

“In other words, you can’t fire an officer until you have sat them down and given them an opportunity to speak,” Rambo said. “But if you don’t have all the facts and circumstances at the time, then you have rushed to judgment. And that is going to come out when they come back with an appeal.”

‘ Overnight’ decisions may backfire

By Saturday, Atlanta’s streets were filled with protesters, most of them near the Wendy’s where Brooks was killed.

Hundreds of people gathered in the parking lot. Some chanted, “Say his name” and carried signs that read, “He didn’t deserve to die” and “Convict the killer cop.”

Protesters shut down an interstate in both directions and set fire to the Wendy’s.

Bottoms announced Saturday that Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields had resigned. Bottoms called for Rolfe to be fired and for Brosnan to be placed on administrative duty. By Sunday, Rolfe was fired, and Brosnan was on administrative duty.

Rambo said quick terminations after a use- of- force incident can actually help the officer’s appeal in the long run.

“What they don’t understand is that this is going to come back at them on the back end in the appeal,” Rambo said. “When the officer comes back and shows that their constitutional rights, at least the due process, was violated, it is proven that eight out of 10 cases are always reversed in favor of the officer, even if he did something wrong.”

He noted additional outside pressure from public protests can pressure leaders into making quick decisions. Since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, firings have come shortly after use- of- force incidents.

“In normal times, these types of investigations would almost take two, three weeks, maybe a month,” Rambo said. “Now, they’re just happening overnight.”

Ex- Atlanta officer awaits trial

In the one Atlanta Police Department killing included in The Washington Post database that led to an indictment, the ex- officer still awaits trial.

James Burns was reindicted on charges of aggravated assault and violating his oath of office in September 2018, a month after charges were initially dropped.

The charges stem from the death of Devaris Rogers on June 22, 2016.

Burns responded to an off- duty officer’s report of a suspicious person on foot. When he arrived, Burns spotted the driver of a 2011 silver Ford Fusion turn on the headlights and start to drive away.

Burns tried to stop the vehicle with his patrol car but failed. He left his cruiser and shot into the passenger side of the car, striking Rogers in the head.

Rogers was pronounced dead that night.

Burns, in his third year as an officer, told investigators he shot into the Ford Fusion without knowing whether the driver was the “suspicious person” police were looking for. His contention that he shot out of fear for his safety was rebutted by Atlanta Police Department investigators, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Burns was fired after killing Rogers, but four years later, he has not been tried.

System shields law enforcement

Tiffany Williams Roberts, a member of the Southern Center for Human Rights Community Engagement and Movement Building Counsel who works as a civil rights and criminal defense attorney in Atlanta, said officers are usually not prosecuted for their actions because the system is built to shield them.

“It’s very rare that an officer is prosecuted, let alone convicted,” Roberts said. “That’s a combination of politics and really bad case law.”

In most use- of- force cases in which officers are not prosecuted, they get their jobs back. Roberts said this is in part because of the process of termination for police.

“There’s an administrative process for appeals that officers enjoy,” Roberts said. “We have seen in the past that officers are terminated because of the violation of some code of professional conduct, and then they go back and they appeal the decision, and the administrative body that hears employment claims will often give them back their job.”

Atlanta has a Citizen Review Board that is meant to serve as an avenue to bring forth police complaints and provide legitimate investigations into those complaints.

The board has access to investigators, as well as subpoena power, and can make recommendations to the Atlanta Police Department for officer discipline, but the board’s advice is rarely taken by the department, Roberts said.

“When the board, on rare occasion, recommends discipline for an officer, the practice is essentially for the police departments to disregard the advice of the Citizen Review Board,” Roberts said.

The Atlanta Police Department upheld 11% of the 34 cases in which the review board recommended officer discipline, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported in 2016.

“The system works, but it was designed to shield law enforcement from accountability for harming the community,” Roberts said. “There’s something about America that needs to deify police officers. And when you make gods of entire professions, you exempt them from any sort of worldly accountability.”

Brooks