Charges have been brought against the officers involved in the killing of Rayshard Brooks, and new information is revealed by the DA:
The Fulton County district attorney has issued arrest warrants in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks.
DA Paul Howard said he is charging Officer Garrett Rolfe with 11 counts including felony murder and aggravated assault, criminal damage to property and violations to his oath of office.
Officer Devin Brosnan is being charged with aggravated assault and two violations of oath of office.
Howard said the DA’s office was able to interview 10 witnesses to the shooting and watch eight videos that recorded the incident. Those videos included surveillance, body cam and personal cellphone video. They also viewed physical evidence including inspecting the crime scene, canvassing the area and examining the Tasers that were used prior to bringing these charges against the officers.
Howard said they concluded from witness statements and the videos that Brooks never presented himself as a threat.
“Even though Mr. Brooks was slightly impaired, his demeanor during this incident was almost jovial,” Howard said. “For 41 minutes and 17 seconds he followed every instruction, he answered the questions. Mr. Brooks never displayed any aggressive behavior during the 41 minutes and 17 seconds.”
Howard said following the shooting, the officers failed to give Brooks any medical attention for 2 minutes and 12 seconds.
“During that 2 minutes and 12 seconds, Officer Rolfe actually kicked Mr. Brooks as he laid on the ground, while he was there fighting for his life,” Howard said. “Officer Brosnan actually stood on Mr. Brooks shoulder.”
Howard said his office concluded at time of Brooks’ death, he did not pose a threat to the officers. He said Brooks was running away from the officers when Rolfe shot him in the back two times.
“We have also concluded that Rolfe was aware that the Taser in Brooks’ possession, it was fired twice, and once it’s fired twice it presented no danger to him or to any other persons,” Howard said.
Howard said Rolfe exclaimed, “I got him,” after shooting Brooks two times.
Brosnan has now become a state witness, and has admitted he was standing on Brooks’ shoulder following his death.
Good.
Now if they would just file charges in the Breonna Taylor case.Report
Agreed. Given that charges have been dropped against her boyfriend for rightly defending them in the house, you’d think they would have been charged with something by now.Report
Assuming they’re fired from the force I’d trade their freedom for a national ban on no-knocks. Disbanding plain clothes drug task forces would also go a long way.Report
Thing is, I can absolutely see the need for something like a no-knock warrant. But I want to requirements for a judge to sign off on one to be a whole lot higher. It can not simply be on the officers say-so, they need video evidence, detailed surveillance logs, testimony of an informant who can be produced for the judge to talk to, etc.
I’d also like there to be consequences for judges who sign warrants (any warrants, not just no-knocks) who do not do their due diligence. If they rubber stamp the warrant, and it goes sideways, then they just rubber-stamped away their immunity from a civil suit.Report
considering they guy was already in custody i’m wondering why they bothered with the raid.Report
Here’s what I don’t like about the situation. If you look at only the minute that happened before the shooting, holy crap, it looks justified. If you look at the 20 minutes that happened before the shooting, you see the cops toying with him for 19 minutes before they inspire him to act in such a way that gets the response of the minute before the shooting.
There are a thousand things the cops could have done instead of what they did if you start at the 20 minute mark. Everything from putting a note in his pocket that said “your car is at Wendy’s” and getting him a cab to parking his car for him and putting him in the drunk tank overnight before throwing the book at him the next day. There are additional options to those.
But if you limit watching the film to the minute before the shooting, you’re going to say “holy crap, this was a tragic shooting but I understand that the police need to be ready for crazy, violent people to attack them at any moment”.
And if you watch for the 20 minutes before that, you see the cops gently move the situation to the one that resulted in that one minute.
And I wonder if the jury will only be shown that one minute.Report
Based on the DA’s statements in the quotes story he intends to show the jury the whole thing. Given what the DA said, its clear this was a bad shoot. Which means the APD is nowhere near done making changes. Because if officers have 41 minutes to goad a someone into doing something, that’s about 31 minutes too much contact with the guy.Report
Because due diligence is for suckers! Real cops just go kick in some doors!Report
Jane Coaston is one of those Voxers who shows intriguing signs of having spent too much time around intelligent libertarian-types.
She’s worth following.Report
Atlanta PD responded by calling in sick to the night shift. The police still seem to think they can win this by being defiant and petulant. Sadly, the police might be right.Report
I haven’t seen any reports of what happened in Atlanta overnight.
Like, not from people cheering “SEE? WE DON’T NEED POLICE!” and not from people crowing “SEE? THIS IS WHY WE NEED POLICE!”Report
Good news!
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