The Atlanta Case

The latest cause du jour is last week's police shooting of Rayshard Brooks, a black man who fell asleep behind the wheel of a car in the drive through lane of a Wendy's restaurant. Police were called and Brooks failed a field sobriety test. When two officers attempted to put the handcuffs on him, Brooks fought them both to the ground, and managed to grab one of the officer's taser guns. As he took off running with one cop chasing him, he turned and fired the taser at the officer, who shot him. Brooks died, and now, one officer, Garrett Rolfe, is charged with first degree murder and is facing the death penalty. The other officer is also facing battery charges.

So the question is whether the shooting was justified.

Unlike the Minneapolis case, this is a much tougher call. I think the biggest issue comes down to whether a taser gun is considered a deadly weapon. Can a person die from being shot by a  taser gun (since it is issued to police as a non-lethal option before you resort to a firearm). The fact is that some people have died after being hit with a taser due to the effect it has on your heart rate.

I should state at this point, that I never had any experience with a taser gun in my DEA career. We were not issued such weapons, and I have never fired one.

A study by Reuters found that approximately 1,000 people have died in the US since 2000 after being stunned by police with taser guns. That right there would indicate that a taser can be a deadly weapon. In fact, under Georgia state law, tasers are classified as deadly weapons. It gets better. Two weeks ago, the Fulton County DA, Paul Howard, charged two Atlanta cops for tasering two people in a car during a riot in his city. In the link here, he states that under Georgia law, a taser is classified as a deadly weapon. Now he is claiming that neither Officer Rolfe nor anyone else was in danger during the encounter.

Also consider this: Suppose Officer Rolfe had been disabled by the taser, which it is specifically designed to do. Would that not have enabled  Brooks to then take Rolfe's firearm and kill him with it?  You can argue that with a second officer present, Brooks would have kept running, but keep in mind that all this is happening at warp speed, and Rolfe made that split second decision that cops sometimes have to make.

Here is the video of the shooting from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. It has no sound.

Here is clear video with sound of the actual physical struggle. You can see Brooks grab the taser from the second officer and point it at officer Rolfe who also points his taser at Brooks. You can hear three cracks (It appears to me that both tasers were discharged) before Brooks  takes off running with Rolfe in pursuit. Again, the shooting is off camera. What you hear is what sounds like a taser shot followed by three gunshots.

Here is the full officer body cam video One hour and 27 minutes)  released by police. It shows the complete encounter between Brooks and the officers and continues to when Officer Rolfe returned to the police station with a supervisor. It includes the struggle when officers tried to handcuff Brooks, but the actual shooting occurs out of camera range. You can hear the shots.

Setting aside the actual shooting , were the cops acting according to the law in the DUI investigation? Yes, they were. The video shows that the exchanges between the officers and Brooks were civil and professional. Brooks was being cooperative. You might want to make the case (especially given current circumstances) that the cops could have just left Brooks secure the vehicle and walk home. That argument is irrelevant, however. The officers were following lawful procedure.

At the very least, I feel that Officer Rolfe is being overcharged (1st degree murder with a possible death penalty). Ultimately, I think that Georgia state law is going to be crucial here. If state law classifies  tasers as deadly weapons, that will be the determining factor at time of trial. I also think the videos will prove to be exculpatory.