Officer who shot Rayshard Brooks charged with felony murder

ATLANTA
(AP) — Prosecutors brought murder charges Wednesday against the white
Atlanta police officer who shot Rayshard Brooks in the back, saying that
Brooks was not a deadly threat and that the officer kicked the wounded
black man and offered no medical treatment for over two minutes as he
lay dying on the ground.

Brooks, 27, was holding a stun gun he had
snatched from officers, and he fired it at them during the clash, but
he was running away at the time and was 18 feet, 3 inches from Officer
Garrett Rolfe when Rolfe started shooting, District Attorney Paul Howard
said in announcing the charges. Stun guns have a range of around 15
feet.

“I got him!” the prosecutor quoted Rolfe as saying.

The
felony murder charge against Rolfe, 27, carries life in prison or the
death penalty, if prosecutors decide to seek it. He was also charged
with 10 other offenses punishable by decades behind bars.

The
decision to prosecute came less than five days after the killing outside
a Wendy’s restaurant rocked a city — and a nation — already roiled by
the death of George Floyd under a police officer’s knee in Minneapolis
late last month.

“We’ve concluded at the time that Mr. Brooks was shot that he did not pose an immediate threat of death,” Howard said.

A
second officer, Devin Brosnan, 26, stood on Brooks’ shoulder as he
struggled for his life, Howard said. Brosnan was charged with aggravated
assault and violating his oath.

The district attorney said
Brosnan is cooperating with prosecutors and will testify, saying it was
the first time in 40 such cases in which an officer had come forward to
do so. But an attorney for Brosnan emphatically denied he had agreed to
be a prosecution witness and said he was not pleading guilty to
anything.

A lawyer for Brooks’ widow cautioned that the charges were no reason to rejoice.

“We
shouldn’t have to celebrate as African Americans when we get a piece of
justice like today. We shouldn’t have to celebrate and parade when an
officer is held accountable,” attorney L. Chris Stewart said.

Brooks’ widow, Tomika Miller, said it was painful to hear the new details of what happened to her husband in his final minutes.

“I felt everything that he felt, just by hearing what he went through, and it hurt. It hurt really bad,” she said.

The
news came on a day of rapid developments involving race and equal
justice. Republicans on Capitol Hill unveiled a package of police reform measures. And the movement to get rid of Confederate monuments and other racially offensive symbols reached America’s breakfast table, with the maker of Aunt Jemima syrup and pancake mix dropping the 131-year-old brand.

Brooks’
killing Friday night sparked new demonstrations in Georgia’s capital
against police brutality after occasionally turbulent protests over
Floyd’s death had largely died down. Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields
resigned less than 24 hours after Brooks died, and the Wendy’s
restaurant was burned.

Rolfe was fired after the shooting, while Brosnan was placed on desk duty.

Ahead
of the district attorney’s announcement, Rolfe’s lawyers issued a
statement saying the officer feared for his safety and that of others
around him and was justified in shooting Brooks. Rolfe opened fire after
hearing a sound “like a gunshot and saw a flash in front of him,”
apparently from the stun gun.

“Mr. Brooks violently attacked two
officers and disarmed one of them. When Mr. Brooks turned and pointed an
object at Officer Rolfe, any officer would have reasonably believed
that he intended to disarm, disable or seriously injure him,” the
lawyers said.

But the district attorney said the stun gun that
Brooks held had already been fired twice and was thus empty and no
longer a threat.

Brosnan’s lawyer, Amanda Clark Palmer, said the
charges against the officer were baseless. She said Brosnan stood on the
wounded man’s hand, not his shoulder, for a short period of time —
seconds — to make sure Brooks did not have a weapon.

Police had
been called to the restaurant over complaints of a car blocking the
drive-thru lane. An officer found Brooks asleep behind the wheel, and a
breath test showed he was intoxicated.

Police body-camera video
showed Brooks and officers having a relatively calm and respectful
conversation — “almost jovial,” according to the district attorney — for
more than 40 minutes before things rapidly turned violent when officers
tried to handcuff him. Brooks wrestled with officers, grabbed one of
their stun guns and fired it at one of them as he ran through the
parking lot.

An autopsy found he was shot twice in the back. One
shot pierced his heart, the district attorney said. At least one bullet
went into a vehicle that was in line at the Wendy’s drive-thru.

After
Brooks was shot, he was given no medical attention for over two
minutes, despite Atlanta police policy that says officers must offer
timely help, Howard said.

The district attorney said Rolfe and
Brosnan had until 6 p.m. Thursday to surrender. He said he would request
$50,000 bond for Brosnan and no bail for Rolfe.

The charges
reflect a potential “sea change” in tolerance for violence by police,
said Caren Morrison, a Georgia State University law professor who used
to be a federal prosecutor.

Morrison said the view until now has
generally been that officers are justified in using deadly force in a
case in which the suspect had a stun gun or other weapon that could
cause “grievous bodily harm.”

In the Minneapolis case, Derek
Chauvin, the officer who put his knee on Floyd’s neck for several
minutes, has been charged with murder. Three other officers have been
charged with aiding and abetting. All four were fired and could get up
to 40 years in prison.

In Washington, meanwhile, Senate
Republicans announced the most ambitious GOP police-reform package in
years, including an enhanced use-of-force database, restrictions on
chokeholds and new commissions to study law enforcement and race.

The bill is not as sweeping as a Democratic proposal set for a House vote next week, but it shows how swiftly the national debate has been transformed since Floyd’s death.

A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research says more Americans today than five years ago believe police brutality is a very serious problem that too often goes undisciplined and unequally targets black Americans.

Associated Press writers Matt Ott in New York; Lisa Mascaro and Jim Mustian in Washington; Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.