Police officer fired over fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks, Atlanta police chief Erika Shields handed in her resignation on Saturday and protesters set fire to the restaurant.
African-American Rayshard Brooks, 27, who had fallen asleep in his car at a drive-through restaurant was shot by a police officer during a struggle on Friday evening, authorities say.
Police officer fired over fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks at an Atlanta Wendy’s
The officer who shot African-American Rayshard Brooks on Friday evening has been fired. A second officer is on administrative duty. The Police Chief, Erika Shields has also stepped down.
Atlanta police chief resigns over shooting of Rayshard Brooks
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Erika Shields handed in her resignation on Saturday, saying the city’s top cop offered to ‘immediately step aside as police chief so that the city may move forward, with urgency, in rebuilding the trust so desperately needed throughout our communities.’
“Out of a deep and abiding love for this city and this department, I offered to step aside as police chief. APD has my full support,” Shields said in a statement. “Mayor Bottoms has my support on the future direction of this department. I have faith in the mayor, and it is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve,” she said.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told reporters she did not think the shooting on Friday night of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, after a confrontation with two officers who tried to arrest him after he failed a sobriety test, represented “justified use of deadly force”. She also called for the officer who shot Brooks to be fired immediately.
Brooks died in hospital after surgery, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said earlier. One officer was treated for an injury and discharged. The officers were not immediately identified.
Demonstrators block a major highway and set fire to a Wendy’s restaurant
Demonstrators burn Wendy’s restaurant where a black man was shot by police as he tried to escape arrest and also block a major highway Interstate-75, in Atlanta after 27-year-old dies in altercation with police.
