One Murder By Police Teeing Up Another Murder By Police

What infuriated me most about the police murder of a Black man in Atlanta was not the officer taking out his gun and shooting the fleeing Mr. Brooks twice in the back. It was rather when the second police officer on the scene, the actual shooter — first — slowly and sadistically badgered and terrified the victim into trying to make a break for fear of his life.

You see, it would have been inconceivable that Mr. Brooks had not freshly viewed, probably numerous times, the police handcuffing of a Black man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, where Floyd, being completely helpless, was put on the ground and suffocate to death by a knee upon his neck and weight on his back.

Actually this latter murder in Atlanta by police started out as a no big deal incident. The unarmed Mr. Brooks had fallen asleep in a Wendy’s drive-through and police were called.

The first officer to respond reasonably suggested that the man’s car simply be moved to a nearby parking space and Mr. Brooks be allowed to sleep off his slight intoxication, and as he was unarmed and not in the least bit hostile this seem like a practical solution to a rather minor problem.

But apparently before that was accomplished trouble arrived in the form of a second police officer. This being the eventual killer, Garrett Rolfe, a long time police department headache that had been reproached numerous times for excessive force.

Officer Rolfe immediately began putting Mr. Brooks though an unusually long, drawn-out series of sobriety tests that even to a casual observer were meant to both intimidate and terrify. This caused Mr. Brooks, in a pleading tone, to tell the officer that he did not want trouble. He said he just wanted to walk to his sister’s house, which was only a few blocks away, so as not to miss his niece’s birthday party.

Watching officer Rolfe — over and over and over again, slowly moving his finger back and forth up and down in front of Rolfe’s face, then have him walk a straight line and finally take a breathalyzer test that showed him only marginally intoxicated was scary to witness.

Sure, officer Rolfe had every legal right to administer this sobriety test, but certainly not in the hostile and intimidating manner that he did, especially in light of what was going on with demonstrations around the country against the killing by police of George Lloyd.

Watching the video of this police abomination, I could just imagine the terror building up inside Mr. Brooks by Rolfe’s domination tactics, tactics that caused the vitim to panic once the police attempted to cuff him.

There is no doubt in my mind that the image of George Lloyd being handcuffed, put to the ground and killed in Minneapolis is what panicked Mr. Brooks into a desperate attempt at escape. Yes, indeed, it was very much a case of the image of one police murder teeing up the conditions for another unnecessary police murder.