Atlanta cops won't be prosecuted in killing of black man

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ASPartOfMe
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23 Aug 2022, 2:48 pm

Prosecutor to dismiss charges against Atlanta police officers involved in fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks

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A Georgia special prosecutor announced Tuesday that murder and assault charges will be dismissed against two Atlanta police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks in June 2020, saying the officers acted reasonably in response to a deadly threat.

"Both acted as reasonable officers would under the facts and circumstances of the events of that night," special prosecutor Peter Skandalakis said. "Both acted in accordance with well-established law and were justified in the use of force regarding the situation."

Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, was shot and killed outside a Wendy's restaurant after he failed a sobriety test and fought two officers who tried to arrest him. During the struggle, Brooks overpowered officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan, took a Taser from Brosnan and ran away, according to prosecutors. While fleeing, he turned back and fired the stolen Taser at Rolfe, who then shot Brooks twice, in the back and buttocks, killing him, prosecutors said.

The incident was extensively captured on video, including body-cam footage, Wendy's surveillance video and witness cellphone video.

Former Gwinnett County District Attorney Daniel Porter provided video analysis in the press conference Tuesday. He explained Georgia officers are allowed to use deadly force when faced with a deadly weapon, including a Taser, so prosecutors determined the shooting was legal.

The fatal shooting of Brooks -- less than three weeks after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis -- sparked protests across Atlanta and beyond amid national demonstrations over police brutality and racial injustice. In Atlanta, the Wendy's restaurant was set ablaze, hundreds blocked a major interstate, authorities fired tear gas and the police chief stepped down.

Five days after the shooting, then-Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced charges against Rolfe of felony murder, aggravated assault, violations of oath of office and criminal damage to property. Brosnan was charged with aggravated assault and violating his oath.

Howard lost his re-election bid and the case ultimately wound up in the hands of Skandalakis, who on Tuesday said he plans to file an administrative dismissal to drop the charges.

Skandalakis said he did not believe the shooting was racially motivated and contrasted it with the killings of Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man killed by armed residents in Georgia in 2020.

"This was not that type of case. This was not an Ahmaud Arbery who was being chased by armed citizens. This was not a George Floyd who was on the ground with an officer kneeling on his neck," Skandalakis said. "This is not that case. These facts are distinguishable and distinct from what happened in those two situations."

Both officers remain on administrative leave with the Atlanta Police Department and will undergo recertification and training, the department said in a statement.

The initial charges against Rolfe and Brosnan came before the Georgia Bureau of Investigation completed its investigation and led to accusations that Howard -- who had an ongoing campaign for another term in office -- acted for political benefit.

At the time, Howard called the accusations "ridiculous" and said the case would be his office's 40th case charging a police officer, nine of which involved the death of someone by police.

The charges were followed by days in which a large number of Atlanta officers called out sick from work.

Howard, who campaigned on the charges in the Brooks case, lost the district attorney election to Fani Willis, who then was recused from prosecuting the case. In July 2021, State Attorney General Chris Carr appointed Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia, to oversee the case.

The day Brooks was shot, police were responding to the Wendy's following reports that a man was asleep in his vehicle in the drive-thru, according to the GBI.

When Brosnan arrived, Brooks was apparently asleep behind the wheel, and Brosnan knocked on the window to wake him up. Brosnan later asked him whether he'd been drinking. Brooks told the officer he had only one drink, body-worn camera shows.

A few minutes later, Rolfe arrived on the scene and used a Breathalyzer on Brooks. As Rolfe attempted to handcuff Brooks, a struggle ensued.

Brooks struggled with the officers and grabbed Brosnan's Taser, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Another video filmed by a bystander begins shortly after the struggle started and shows Brooks getting a hold of the Taser and breaking free.

As Brooks ran from the officers, he turned back and appears to point the Taser at Rolfe, who unholstered his handgun and fired, shooting Brooks twice. Prosecutors on Tuesday said that a video analysis determined Brooks fired the Taser at Rolfe, who fired his handgun 1.1 seconds later.

Part of the question about the legality of the shooting was based on the potential lethality of the Taser.


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Joe90
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23 Aug 2022, 5:03 pm

Tl;Dr

But a criminal is a criminal, doesn't matter if they're black or white. Why should black criminals get away with murder just because of their skin colour? I don't get it. Both black criminals and white criminals should be treated the same (depending on the crime committed, not skin colour).


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23 Aug 2022, 6:32 pm

Racism will never die and it makes me sick in my mouth.


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Matrix Glitch
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23 Aug 2022, 6:40 pm

After having watched the dashcam footage of the incident where he fights and disarms the two officers, the color of his skin obviously didn't have anything to do with it.



Earthbound_Alien
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23 Aug 2022, 6:53 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Tl;Dr

But a criminal is a criminal, doesn't matter if they're black or white. Why should black criminals get away with murder just because of their skin colour? I don't get it. Both black criminals and white criminals should be treated the same (depending on the crime committed, not skin colour).


to:Dr
Read it please



delvian
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23 Aug 2022, 6:59 pm

Matrix Glitch wrote:
After having watched the dashcam footage of the incident where he fights and disarms the two officers, the color of his skin obviously didn't have anything to do with it.

Drunk driving, stealing and firing a taser at a police officer and trying to run away don't warrant the death penalty in my opinion, which is what the police officers exacted upon him without trial or anything else. If he had been white, chances are they'd have found a way to deal with him that didn't involve ending his life there on the spot. White men armed with worse than tasers are carefully apprehended all the time without being killed.



Dox47
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23 Aug 2022, 8:12 pm

delvian wrote:
Drunk driving, stealing and firing a taser at a police officer and trying to run away don't warrant the death penalty in my opinion, which is what the police officers exacted upon him without trial or anything else.


No, it isn't, the difference between administering the death penalty, i.e. the state deliberately killing someone as part of a punitive process, and someone being killed resisting arrest, should be quite obvious. Even the most unjust police killings are not "executions", and it's not mere hyperbole but actively deceptive to say so.

delvian wrote:
If he had been white, chances are they'd have found a way to deal with him that didn't involve ending his life there on the spot. White men armed with worse than tasers are carefully apprehended all the time without being killed.


Do us both a favor and look up the actual statistics before going any further, you'll save yourself some embarrassment and me some time.


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Matrix Glitch
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23 Aug 2022, 9:28 pm

delvian wrote:
White men armed with worse than tasers are carefully apprehended all the time without being killed.

I'd like to see a video of that.



delvian
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24 Aug 2022, 10:52 am

Dox47 wrote:
No, it isn't, the difference between administering the death penalty, i.e. the state deliberately killing someone as part of a punitive process, and someone being killed resisting arrest, should be quite obvious. Even the most unjust police killings are not "executions", and it's not mere hyperbole but actively deceptive to say so.

I'm sorry, I don't really understand the point to what you're saying. Why would anyone, myself included, be so totally confused as to forget that there are other steps involved in capital punishment? The point is they shot him twice which, unsurprisingly, caused him to die. They thought killing him was warranted based on his actions. Are you suggesting the police believed it was more likely than not he would survive being shot twice? That it would be reasonable to think that shooting a person in the back is a good way to apprehend him without causing extreme risk to his life? I'm genuinely not trying to be hyperbolic or sarcastic here, I just can't understand what you were trying to say any other way. Personally I believe that it would have been better for the police to allow this person to escape entirely than to cause him to die. I assume you don't agree?

Dox47 wrote:
Do us both a favor and look up the actual statistics before going any further, you'll save yourself some embarrassment and me some time.

So what you're saying is, there are some relevant statistics and I would be embarrassed if I heard them and, though you don't have time to quote any, you do have just enough time to inform me of their existence, thereby well and truly putting me in my place? Have I got that right? We're talking about a human being losing his life. Is it that you just don't really feel much about that? Is the reason you like statistics because they help you weed out the irrelevant and get closer to the truth or is it just that there's always a statistic somewhere, whether right, wrong or relevant, that will allow you the opportunity to talk down to another person, to "own" them and feel superior?



Dox47
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24 Aug 2022, 8:49 pm

delvian wrote:
I'm sorry, I don't really understand the point to what you're saying. Why would anyone, myself included, be so totally confused as to forget that there are other steps involved in capital punishment? The point is they shot him twice which, unsurprisingly, caused him to die. They thought killing him was warranted based on his actions. Are you suggesting the police believed it was more likely than not he would survive being shot twice? That it would be reasonable to think that shooting a person in the back is a good way to apprehend him without causing extreme risk to his life? I'm genuinely not trying to be hyperbolic or sarcastic here, I just can't understand what you were trying to say any other way. Personally I believe that it would have been better for the police to allow this person to escape entirely than to cause him to die. I assume you don't agree?


Okay, you seem to be having a really hard time with the whole concept of self defense, this person was killed because he pointed a weapon at the cops, who are then allowed to respond with lethal force in the defense of their lives. Your first post used a piece of bad argument that's very common with squeamish types, that the crime the man was accused of didn't deserve the death penalty, when what happened to him, being killed by the cops in self defense, had nothing to do with the penalty for the offense had he been charged in a court of law. Again, this is a fallacious and deceptive argument, as the righteousness of a self defense claim is not related to the severity of the motivating crime, e.g. if someone threatens me with a knife for something of little value, I can legally shoot them even though petty theft or armed robbery are not death penalty offenses. Follow?

delvian wrote:
So what you're saying is, there are some relevant statistics and I would be embarrassed if I heard them and, though you don't have time to quote any, you do have just enough time to inform me of their existence, thereby well and truly putting me in my place? Have I got that right? We're talking about a human being losing his life. Is it that you just don't really feel much about that? Is the reason you like statistics because they help you weed out the irrelevant and get closer to the truth or is it just that there's always a statistic somewhere, whether right, wrong or relevant, that will allow you the opportunity to talk down to another person, to "own" them and feel superior?


First week on the internet?

You made a stupid claim, one that I know you can't support as the facts are not in your favor (WaPo keeps the most comprehensive data on police shootings available, you might look at them sometime), and while I could really rub your nose in how wrong you are, looking them up yourself would be more likely to make you change your mind.

Also, this is a really poor way to argue, if you really wanted to shut me down you could have tried to back up your original assertion (that the cops wouldn't have shot a white guy, in case you forgot) rather than flailing about making more accusations you can't support (such as those regarding my motivations) and throwing in non sequitur appeals to emotion, the whole thing makes you look weak and brittle. Are you not used to getting push-back on your opinions?


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Matrix Glitch
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24 Aug 2022, 10:51 pm

These days especially reasoning gets canceled by virtue signaling.



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17 Sep 2022, 6:23 pm

Would racial tensions between police and crime suspects be lessened if they hired a 50% black police force, for example?



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17 Sep 2022, 9:26 pm

Welcome to GA