ATLANTA — Charges will be dropped against two police officers charged in the deadly shooting of Rayshard Brooks after prosecutors determined that they acted reasonably and without criminal intent, WSB-TV reported.
Police shot and killed Brooks on June 12, 2020, after he fell asleep in a car in the drive-through of a Wendy’s restaurant, according to WSB. The news station reported that Brooks grabbed Officer Devin Brosnan’s stun gun after he and Officer Garrett Rolfe confronted Brooks. When Brooks ran, Rolfe gave chase and shot him after he pointed the stun gun at Rolfe’s head, WSB reported.
Update 3:15 p.m. EDT Aug. 23: Atlanta police said in a statement Tuesday that officers Rolfe and Brosnan will undergo recertification and training after prosecutors announced that they do not plan to pursue charges against the pair following Brooks’ death in 2020.
Both officers remain employed with the Atlanta Police Department, officials said. As of Tuesday, they were on administrative duty.
“We have faith in the criminal justice system, and we respect the special prosecutor’s decision in this case,” police said.
Officials fired Rolfe one day after he shot and killed Brooks, though the decision was later reversed by a review panel that found the city failed to follow its own procedures for disciplinary actions.
Update 2:50 p.m. EDT Aug. 23: Lead prosecutor Pete Skandalakis said Tuesday that he did not believe that race played in factor in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks.
“I believe the officers reacted to the situation that was happening at the time,” he said after reviewing the video evidence analyzed by authorities. “I think the video and the audio all speak for itself. ... The facts are the facts. I don’t change the facts based on the color of a person’s skin. So I do not think this shooting was racially motivated.”
Skandalakis said that he believes that the events happening nationwide at the time of Brooks’ death, which included protests sparked by police violence, contributed to the strong reaction to the 27-year-old’s death.
“This is not a case in which an officer was kneeling on a prone suspect for nine minutes,” he said Tuesday, referencing the killing of George Floyd in May 2020. “Nor was it like the Ahmaud Arbery case, where armed citizens were chasing a young man through a neighborhood.”
[ Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, William Bryan sentenced for hate crimes in Ahmaud Arbery killing ]
Update 2:35 p.m. EDT Aug. 23: Lead prosecutor Pete Skandalakis said the decision to drop charges against officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan came following a review by several experts.
“You look at the totality of the circumstances,” Skandalakis said at a news conference. “What did the officer know in that time, in that moment, in that split second.”
Original report: It was not immediately clear what the announcement would be about. Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, is expected to speak Tuesday afternoon, according to WSB.
Police shot and killed Brooks on June 12, 2020, after he fell asleep in a car in the drive-through of a Wendy’s restaurant, according to WSB. The news station reported that Brooks grabbed Officer Devin Brosnan’s stun gun after he and Officer Garrett Rolfe confronted Brooks. When Brooks ran, Rolfe gave chase and shot him after he pointed the stun gun at Rolfe’s head, WSB reported.
Days after the shooting, authorities arrested Rolfe on charges including felony murder and aggravated assault, according to WSB. Officials charged Brosnan with aggravated assault and violating his oath of office.
Rolfe’s attorneys told WSB in a statement that the charges against their client were “not supported by the evidence.” Brosnan’s lawyer has also denied wrongdoing by his client, according to the news station.
The announcement Tuesday is expected two months after Skandalakis told WSB that he was weighing whether to move forward with the prosecution. Officials appointed Skandalakis to handle the case against Brosnan and Rolfe in July 2021.
The prosecutor told WSB that he has three options: He can decline to continue the officers’ prosecutions, present charges to a criminal grand jury or seek a special grand jury to investigate and determine whether to recommend the case to go before a criminal grand jury for potential charges.
[ Firing of Atlanta officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks reversed by review board ]
In June, Skandalakis told WSB that he and his team “understand the magnitude of this case.”
“Any time you have a death involved, there are a lot of emotions involved, and then you have the complication here, the complications of race and police officers being involved,” he said. “I can’t control the facts in this case. I can’t make everybody happy, and when you try to make everybody happy, no one is happy.”