ATLANTA – Pleading through tears Monday, the family of a black man killed by Atlanta police outside a drive-thru demanded changes in the criminal justice system and called on protesters to refrain from violence amid heightened tensions across the U.S. three weeks after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
An autopsy found that 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back late Friday by a white officer who was trying to arrest him at a fast food restaurant for being intoxicated behind the wheel of his car. Brooks tried to flee after wrestling with officers and grabbing a stun gun from one of them.
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"Not only are we hurt, we are angry,” said Chassidy Evans, Brooks’ niece. “When does it stop? We’re not only pleading for justice. We’re pleading for change.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Monday that she was ordering changes to police use-of-force policies, including requiring that officers receive continuous training in how to deescalate situations and use those techniques before taking action that could be fatal. She said she also was requiring officers to intervene if they see a colleague using excessive force.
The mayor said that after Brooks’ shooting, it was clear Atlanta did not have “another day, another minute, another hour to waste” in changing police practices.
Other cities nationwide are taking similar steps, and packages of police reforms have been proposed or are emerging in Congress.
About 20 of Brooks’ children, siblings, cousins and other family members sobbed at a news conference as over 1,000 people gathered not far away at an NAACP-led protest outside the Georgia Capitol.
Floyd's death May 25 after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into the black man's neck touched off demonstrations and scattered violence across the U.S., and Brooks' killing rekindled those protests in Atlanta. The Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned down over the weekend.
Evans said there was no reason for her uncle “to be shot and killed like trash in the street for falling asleep in a drive-thru.”
"Rayshard has a family who loves him who would have gladly come and got him so he would be here with us today,” she said.
Relatives described Brooks as a loving father of three daughters and a stepson who had a bright smile and a big heart and loved to dance. His oldest daughter learned her father was slain while celebrating her eighth birthday with cupcakes and friends, wearing a special dress as she waited for Brooks to take her skating, said Justin Miller, an attorney for the family.
“There’s no justice that can ever make me feel happy about what's been done," said Tomika Miller, Brooks' widow. "I can never get my husband back. ... I can never tell my daughter he’s coming to take you skating or for swimming lessons.”
She asked those demonstrating to “keep the protesting peaceful,” saying: “We want to keep his name positive and great.”
Several Democratic lawmakers joined protesters and called for Georgia to pass reforms including the repeal of the state's citizen's arrest and stand-your-ground laws.
While some Republican leaders pushed back against swift action on some proposals, GOP House Speaker David Ralston endorsed rapid passage of a hate-crimes law, telling lawmakers that failure to act would be "a stain on this state we can never wash away.”
Morgan Dudley, 18, skipped work to join the demonstration after her job kept her from joining protests following Floyd's death three weeks ago.
“I was like, ‘You know what? This is not a trend. This is an actual problem that we’re facing,’" said Dudley, who is black.
Officials nationwide are responding to calls for reform while protests persist. The New York City Police Department is disbanding the type of plainclothes anti-crime units that were involved in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner and have long been criticized for aggressive tactics, Commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday.
In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a panel of residents, activists and one police official will review the Police Department's policy on when officers can use force. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mayor Tim Keller said he wants a new department of social workers and civilian professionals to provide another option when someone calls 911.
And New Jersey's attorney general ordered police to begin divulging names of officers who commit serious disciplinary violations.
In Congress, Republicans are on the brink of introducing a bill with restrictions on police chokeholds and other practices, while a Democratic proposal would limit legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force encounters and ban chokeholds. The White House will announce its own executive actions Tuesday.
In the Atlanta shooting, Officer Garrett Rolfe, who fired the shots that killed Brooks, was fired, and the other officer at the scene, Devin Brosnan, was put on desk duty. Police Chief Erika Shields resigned.
Police released the officers' disciplinary histories, which showed Rolfe received a written reprimand in 2017 for use of force with a firearm but provided no other details. Rolfe, who was hired in October 2013, also got a written reprimand in 2018 and an oral admonishment in 2014, both for vehicle crashes. A firearm discharge case from 2015 listed no conclusion.
Brosnan was hired last June and had no disciplinary history.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he hopes to decide by midweek whether to charge the officers. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation.
Police were called to the restaurant over complaints of a car blocking the drive-thru lane. An officer found Brooks asleep in the car.
Police video showed Brooks cooperating with the officers for more than 40 minutes until a breath test determined his blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit. When one of the officers moved to handcuff him, Brooks tried to run and the officers took him to the ground.
Brooks broke free and took off with a stun gun but was shot. Rolfe told authorities that Brooks fired the stun gun at him.
Asked why Brooks ran, family attorney L. Chris Stewart suggested that he may have feared for his life.
"They put George Floyd in handcuffs and he was subsequently killed,” Stewart said. “So just getting put in handcuffs if you’re African American doesn’t mean, oh, you’re going to get nicely taken to the back of a police car.”
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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writer Ben Nadler in Atlanta contributed to this report.