The Atlanta Police Department released the disciplinary histories for both officers involved in the death of Rayshard Brooks Monday, revealing one has a dozen misconduct complaints.
According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Garrett Rolfe, the officer who shot Brooks twice in the back and killed him, received a written reprimand in 2017 for his use of force involving a firearm. The documents provided by police do not go into specifics about that event.
However, he also has five vehicle accidents, four citizen complaints, and a firearm discharge in August 2015 on his record. Rolfe also has an allegation of excessive use of force with a gun in 2017. Rolfe received just a reprimand for that incident and was exonerated in nine of the 12 charges made against him.
Officer Devin Brosnan, who was the first to approach Brooks at the Wendy’s, has no disciplinary history since he joined the department in 2018.
The officers were called to a Wendy’s Friday night after employees discovered Brooks sleeping in his car at the drive-thru forcing other cars to maneuver around him. After the employees tried and failed to wake him up, they called the cops.
“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.
The police showed up to the scene and according to previously released camera footage, Brooks was initially cooperative with the police, until he failed a field sobriety test. When the officers tried to arrest Brooks, it led to a struggle. Eventually, Brooks got hold of one of the officer’s tasers and ran a few steps away from the cops before Rolfe opened fire.
“It does appear in the video that he is fleeing from the Atlanta police officers, that as he’s fleeing he turns back over his shoulder with what appears to the naked eye to be his Taser that the eyewitnesses told us they saw the individual have that belonged to one of the officers,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation Vic Reynolds told reporters. “And as he turned it over, you’ll be able to see on the video the Atlanta officer, literally reach down to get his service weapon and as he gets his weapon, Mr. Brooks begins turning his body away from him, I presume to flee.”
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has yet to decide if either officer will be charged in Brooks’ death, which comes less than a month after the death of George Floyd.
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