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Another African-American man killed by police amid ongoing antiracism protests
Protestors blocked a major interstate highway and set fire to popular fast-food chain restaurant as outrage grew untempered by the swift resignation of the Atlanta police chief and the firing of the police officer who had fatally shot Rayshard Brooks, the black man, on Friday night.
As the United States continued to mourn the death of George Floyd and protest against racism in law enforcement agencies, it found itself confronting the urgency of the issue as public anger erupted Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia over the killing of another African American man by a white police officer.
Protestors blocked a major interstate highway and set fire to popular fast-food chain restaurant as outrage grew untempered by the swift resignation of the Atlanta police chief and the firing of the police officer who had fatally shot Rayshard Brooks, the black man, on Friday night.
The police had found Brooks, a 27-year-old father of three, sleeping in his car in the drive-through of Wendy’s, a fast food chain. He failed a sobriety test and in an ensuing struggle with two officers snatched a Taser and was shot trying to flee, according to Georgia state investigators.
Police chief Erika Shields announced a resignation within hours and Garett Wolfe, the officer who is alleged to have to shot Brooks, has been fired.
“While there may be debate whether this was an appropriate use of deadly force, I firmly believe there is a clear distinction between what you can do and what you should do,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a news conference at which she also announced Shields’ resignation. “I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer.”
The Atalanta shooting came three weeks after George Floyd, a 46-year African American father of five children, died under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis, triggering countrywide protests and an intense debate on the need for urgent police reforms to root out racism.
Several demonstrators turned up outside West Point, the elite academy in New York for future US military leaders where President Donald Trump gave the commencement address at an in-person event in the middle of escalating differences with US military leaders. They carried signs and chanted slogans.
Trump did not mention Brooks in his speech, but alluded to the context of the protests following the death of Floyd. “It was this school that gave us the men who fought and won a bloody war to extinguish the evil of slavery within one lifetime of our founding,” the president said.
Trump recently shut down a move by the Pentagon to rename Army bases named after generals of the confederacy of states that had seceded from the United States and fought its army, and lost, from 1861 to 1865 to protect slavery and continue white supremacy. There are 10 such bases.
But statutes of confederate figures — and others, going back to Christopher Columbus — continue to be toppled around the country. Protestors pulled down a statue Saturday of John McDonogh, a wealthy 19th century slaveowner in Louisiana, loaded the torn down part on two two trucks and dumped them in the Mississippi River.
Newsrooms across the country have felt the impact of the continuing and growing protests on the streets. Several top editors and executives have faced scrutiny and punishment. There is no word yet about those responsible at Fox News, an unabashed conservative news channel and supporter of President Trump, for using a digitally altered picture of Seattle protests, which has since been taken down.
