Protests erupt in Atlanta after police shoot and kill black man
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Protesters shut down a major Atlanta highway on Saturday and burned down a Wendy’s restaurant where a black man was shot dead by police as he tried to escape arrest, an incident likely to fuel more nationwide tensions over race and police brutality.
The restaurant was in flames for more than 45 minutes before fire crews arrived to extinguish the blaze, by which time the building was reduced to charred rubble.
Other demonstrators marched onto Interstate 75, stopping traffic, before police used a line of squad cars to hold them back.
The city’s police chief, Erika Shields, resigned earlier Saturday over the Friday shooting of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, captured on video.
The police department has fired the officer charged with shooting and killing Brooks, said police spokesman Carlos Campos. Another officer involved in the incident was put on administrative leave. Both officers are white.
Brooks’ death followed weeks of demonstrations in major cities across the United States sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while detaining him.
The Atlanta officer fired after Friday’s incident was identified by the police department as Garrett Rolfe, who joined the department in October of 2013. The officer placed on administrative duty is Devin Bronsan, who was hired in September of 2018.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she had accepted the prompt resignation of Chief of Police Shields.
“I do not believe this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer,” Bottoms said at an afternoon news conference.
Brooks was the father of a young daughter who was celebrating her birthday on Saturday, his lawyers said.
Near the scene of the shooting, street protests began on Saturday with more than 100 people calling for the officers to be criminally charged.
Friday’s shooting came after police were called to the Wendy’s over reports that Brooks had fallen asleep in the drive-thru line.
Officers attempted to take him into custody after he failed a field sobriety test, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
A bystander’s video showed Brooks struggling with two officers on the ground outside the restaurant before breaking free and running across the parking lot with what appeared to be a police TASER in his hand.
A second videotape from the restaurant’s cameras shows Brooks turning as he runs and possibly aiming the TASER at the pursuing officers before one of them fires his gun and Brooks falls to the ground.
Brooks ran the length of about six cars when he turned back toward an officer and pointed what he had in his hand at the policeman, Vic Reynolds, director of the GBI, said at a press conference.
“At that point, the Atlanta officer reaches down and retrieves his weapon from his holster, discharges it, strikes Mr Brooks in the parking lot and he goes down,” Reynolds said.
Lawyers representing the Brooks family told reporters Atlanta police had no right to use deadly force even if he had fired the TASER, a non-lethal weapon, in their direction.
“You can’t shoot somebody unless they are pointing a gun at you,” attorney Chris Stewart said.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr, said in an e-mailed statement that his office “has already launched an intense, independent investigation of the incident” while it awaits the findings of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Bottoms said Shields, a white woman appointed police chief in December 2016, would be replaced by deputy chief Rodney Bryant, a black man who will serve as interim chief.
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