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The Atlanta Police Department released the 911 call on Rayshard Brooks that occurred before his deadly confrontation with police last week.
The disciplinary histories for both of the officers involved in responding to the 911 call were also released, showing a use-of-force complaint against Garrett Rolfe, the officer who shot and killed Brooks, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday.
(Soure: The Telegraph/YouTube)
The 911 call came from a Wendy’s employee who reported that Brooks was blocking drive-thru traffic at the fast food eatery as he had apparently fallen asleep in his car. She noted in the call that he seemed “intoxicated” but that he did not appear to be armed.
“I tried to wake him up but he’s parked dead in the middle of the drive-thru, so I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” the caller said.
“Is he breathing ma’am? Do you know?” the dispatcher asked.
“Yeah, he woke up and looked at me. I was like, you’ve got to move out of the drive-thru because people are going around,” the caller replied.
Rolfe and officer Devin Brosnan soon responded and spoke to Brooks before things escalated. The 27-year-old admitted to being drunk but following a sobriety test, he grabbed the officer’s Taser and took off, eventually being shot by Rolfe. The incident sparked rioting that left the Wendy’s restaurant in flames, led the police chief to resign and had Democrat Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announce the shooting was unjustified before the full story was even known.
Atlanta riots: Wendy’s burns, police chief resigns, FBI releases footage of black man shot by officers https://t.co/siy2SmJcp4 pic.twitter.com/PQZbi4cxvR
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) June 14, 2020
Rolfe had worked for the Atlanta Police Department for seven years before he was fired. A use-of-force complaint involving a firearm resulted in a written reprimand against him in 2017, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday.
And while Rolfe had a dozen incidents in his history with the department, including Friday’s shooting as well as vehicle accidents and citizens’ complaints, he was cleared in nine of them. One incident was a firearm discharge in August 2015 but there was no conclusion on that listed in his documents.
Brosnan, who has been placed on administrative duty pending the investigation of Brooks’ death, had joined the department in 2018 and had no disciplinary history.
The shooting sparked renewed attacks on police that had already escalated after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Many condemned the outcome in Atlanta as they believe Brooks posed no great risk and police should have done more to defuse the situation.
An attorney for the Brooks family noted how police could have let him just walk to his sister’s house, as he was heard requesting to do in police bodycam video.
“That’s how this could have ended,” L. Chris Stewart said. “It didn’t have to go to that level. Where is the empathy in just letting him walk home?”
He told CNN Monday that Rolfe’s record “wasn’t a surprise.”
“I could have told people, ‘I guarantee you this officer has had issues in the past.’ It’s normally that situation,” he said. “You know who causes issues or who has had prior issues or who has had complaints. A lot of them don’t get justified and then they stay on the force.”
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Frieda@bizpacreview.com
Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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