Source USA Today By John Bacon and Nicquel Terry Ellis Sun., June14/20
Scores of demonstrators turned out Saturday to protest the shooting. Late Saturday night, the Wendy’s in South Atlanta was set ablaze, and it was again engulfed in flames Sunday morning.
Reactions to the shooting centered around the belief that the incident did not call for deadly force. Within hours of the shooting, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields stepped down from her post but will continue with the department in an undetermined role.
Radcliff Angus, who is Black and lives in Atlanta, said Sunday that he was “numb” when he first heard about the Brooks’ killing. He said he became frustrated when he brought himself to watch the video.
“All levels of police know this is an extremely volatile time,” said Angus, 42. “Bringing more force than necessary will result in this type of situation. There are other models of policing that do not require the most severe physical response.”
Attorney L. Chris Stewart, who represents the family of Rayshard Brooks (pic above), said training had failed. Two officers should have been able to control one man without shooting him, Stewart said. He wants the officer who shot Brooks charged with murder.
“A Taser is not a deadly weapon, it’s not like he was running off with a gun,” he said. The officer’s “life was not in immediate harm when he fired that shot, it just was not.”
U.S. Rep. James Enos Clyburn, D-S.C., the House Majority Whip, said he was incensed by the shooting, especially coming after weeks of protests demanding racial justice and an end to police brutality.
“This did not call for lethal force, and I don’t know what’s in the culture that would make this guy do that,” Clyburn said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “It’s got to be the culture, it’s got to be the system.”
