Protesters at the ‘March On Georgia’ in Atlanta, June 15.
Photo: Dustin Chambers/Getty ImagesAtlanta
The upheaval in American cities has hit especially hard in Atlanta. As in Minneapolis, a video of a fatal encounter involving police ignited “the city too busy to hate.”
The June 12 incident involved Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old black man, and two white police officers. It happened in the parking lot of a Wendy’s on Atlanta’s predominantly black south side. Brooks was passed out in his car, blocking the drive-through. When the responding officers moved to handcuff him, Brooks resisted, swinging wildly at the cops and snatching a stun gun from one of them. Brooks broke free and ran away, with Officer Garrett Rolfe in pursuit. Brooks fired the stun gun at the officers, and Mr. Rolfe returned fire with his handgun. Brooks was struck in the back and died later at a hospital.
The next day, hundreds of demonstrators returned to the Wendy’s. After police arrived, many of the protesters temporarily halted traffic on an interstate running through downtown. Later that night, some members of the crowd broke the restaurant’s windows, and two unidentified white women are suspected of starting a blaze that burned it to the ground. A tolerable calm returned the next day, but it’s a calm with an edge and possibly an expiration date.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced 11 charges against Mr. Rolfe on Wednesday, including one count of felony murder, a capital offense. Mr. Howard has not said if he will seek the death penalty in this case, but last month he said his office would no longer seek capital punishment. The other officer, Devin Brosnan, faces one count of aggravated assault and three counts of violation of oath.
The developments, particularly the charges against Mr. Brosnan, took many by surprise. That includes the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which announced that its probe—customary in officer-involved shootings—wasn’t complete. Mr. Howard also said Mr. Brosnan had agreed to plead guilty and testify against Mr. Rolfe, which Mr. Brosnan’s attorney immediately disputed.
The district attorney also asserted, incredibly, that Brooks had “followed every instruction” the officers had given him. One need not believe the shooting was justified to note Brooks had not followed instructions to submit to handcuffing, to stop fighting with officers, to release the stun gun, and to stop running away.
By Wednesday evening, Atlanta had a different kind of police problem: officers refusing to report for duty in multiple precincts. Police union representatives say morale has hit a new low.
Messrs. Rolfe and Brosnan weren’t the first Atlanta officers this month to be charged criminally for use of excessive force. Mr. Howard also filed charges against six cops for roughing up two college students during protests on May 30. Several of those officers are charged with aggravated assault and pointing or aiming a stun gun. The double standard of Messrs. Rolfe and Brosnan facing similar charges, even though Brooks fired the same weapon at them, isn’t lost on Atlanta’s cops.
Many Atlantans suspect that Mr. Howard rushed to file charges in these high-profile cases to satisfy his political base. He is struggling to win a seventh term as district attorney for Fulton County, of which Atlanta makes up a little under half the population.
Earlier this month, Mr. Howard finished second among three candidates in the Democratic primary. He now goes to a runoff against his former top deputy, Fani Willis. Both are African-American. But while Mr. Howard performed well in the predominantly black precincts on the south side of Atlanta, Ms. Willis outpaced him in the mostly white precincts on Atlanta’s north side and in the northern suburbs.
Within the city, the level of public safety is a matter of debate. Official data offer a mixed bag: The FBI’s preliminary statistics for 2019 showed a 3% increase in violent crime compared with 2018, but a 5% decline in property crime. Then again, Atlanta police announced in 2018 they would no longer respond to many shoplifting complaints. Local media have noted a surge in car thefts, particularly from gas stations; early last year, an Atlanta Falcons player’s car was stolen while he was inside a convenience store.
These and other high-profile cases had many residents on edge well before recent events. Mary Norwood, a white former City Council member and political independent, who ran for mayor in 2009 and again in 2017, urged Republicans to vote for Ms. Willis over Mr. Howard in the Democratic primary. (There was no Republican contest for that office, and primaries in Georgia are open.)
The runoff will be held Aug. 11, but the current district attorney’s decisions in the interim will have lasting effects.
Mr. Wingfield is president and CEO of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.
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