It was back in 2020 when Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by a police officer outside a Wendy’s in Atlanta. Surveillance video showed police finding Brooks asleep in his car in a Wendy’s drive-thru. Brooks failed a sobriety test, but then got into a struggle with a police officer, ran off with his taser, and pointed it at him before turning and running away, when he was shot. The officer was fired and the police chief resigned.
The officer wasn’t just fired, though. The district attorney hit him with 11 charges, including felony murder. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard to the press that at no time did Brooks pose a threat — just two weeks after he explained to the press that a Taser is considered a deadly weapon in Georgia in a case involving police officers and protesters.
Officer Garrett Rolfe was reinstated to the force, but Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a statement that terminating him was the right thing to do “given the volatile state of our city and nation last summer.”
Now it’s 2022, and we’re learning that a special prosecutor has dropped charges against Rolfe, saying he and another officer on the scene committed no crimes.
Like many of these situations, the police officer did nothing wrong, but the media wanted to push a narrative, so they deliberately misrepresented the situation to generate outrage. Charges should have never been filed against the police officer.
— Peter Garrett (@TheUnrealPeterG) August 23, 2022
I think that's the right call based on the video
— Dan (@Dantheman0310) August 23, 2022
They were never gonna be. APD rules say a taser’s a deadly weapon and officers are allowed use deadly force when faced with a suspect using a deadly weapon.
When Rayshard Brooks took the taser, they had clearance to shoot.
Don’t let facts get in the way of a narrative though 🙄
— The Issues of My Time (@IssuesOfMyTime) August 23, 2022
Things we knew two years ago…
— RBI Baseball ‘94 (@IHateWalks) August 23, 2022
It shouldn't have taken this long.
— Iroquois Native 🇺🇲🇺🇸 (@MohicanSon) August 23, 2022
Isn’t this the guy who grabbed the cop’s taser? How were there charges in the first place?
— Unagi (@brownrobin64) August 23, 2022
Should have been cleared immediately after watching the body cam.
— BKactual (@BravoKiloActual) August 23, 2022
If you watch body footage… the officers had every right to defend themselves.
I don’t get the outrage? Yes, sometimes the police have gone too far. They didn’t here. Saying otherwise just hollows out an otherwise important agenda.
Don’t be woke just to be woke.
— Matthew O (@SmotherCovered) August 23, 2022
Ah well. What's important is that they social justiced the shit out of that Wendy's. https://t.co/DJwieUzjv9 pic.twitter.com/biDlUKSXat
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 23, 2022
Related:
There sure seemed to have been a lot of shots fired at the mostly peaceful Rayshard Brooks vigil Friday night https://t.co/bCy5cxOosN
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) June 20, 2020
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