The death of Rayshard Brooks, a black man killed by a white police officer in Atlanta on Friday, was a homicide caused by gunshot wounds to the back, the Fulton county medical examiner’s office has said, as the US headed into a fourth week of unrest over police violence.
Brooks’s death reignited protests in Atlanta after days of worldwide demonstrations against racism and police brutality prompted by the death of George Floyd, an African American, in police custody in Minneapolis on 25 May.
Garrett Rolfe, a six-year veteran of the Atlanta Police Department, who shot a fleeing Rayshard Brooks twice in the back, killing him, had completed de-escalation and cultural-awareness training after which he received a department certificate.
Employees of an Atlanta Wendy’s restaurant called the police and told them Brooks had fallen asleep in his car while stopped in the drive-through lane, causing other motorists to drive around him.
Brooks’ death sparked a number of other incidents and anger in the black collective memory about our treatment by police.