The only Republican Party African-American senator in the U.S. Senate and the only African-American member of president Donald Trump's cabinet both dismiss the widely held legal view the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, an African-American, by a white policeman in Atlanta, Georgia is a clear-cut case of murder. By so doing, both defended the white police officer that shot Brooks to death.
Brooks, 27, was accosted by two white policemen of the Atlanta Police Department (APD) on June 12 for sleeping in his car while waiting in line at a Wendy's restaurant drive-thru. Apparently drunk, Brooks nevertheless talked cordially to the two APD officers -- Devin Brosnan and Garrett Rolfe -- for about 20 minutes.
Things turned deadly when Rolfe gave Brooks a breathalyzer test for drunkenness, which Brooks failed. Told to put his hands behind his back so he could be handcuffed, Brooks resisted and a violent scuffle ensued.
Brooks wrested Brosnan's Taser from him and ran pursued by Rolfe. As he ran, Brooks fired the Taser at Rolfe and missed. Rolfe, who was also holding a Taser as he pursued Brooks, took out his pistol instead and fired three times at the fleeing Brooks. Two of the three shots hit Brooks in the back, killing him.
Rolfe was fired from his job by Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Brosnan was placed on administrative leave. APD chief Erika Shields resigned because of the incident. Both Rolfe and Brosnan haven't been arrested for Brook's killing, however.
Videos of this horrific killing taken from the bodycams of both cops, the Wendy's security camera and bystanders gives a complete picture of the entire tragic event from start to finish. Angry Atlanta protestors burned down the Wendy's restaurant on Saturday and marched through city streets demanding justice for Brooks.
On Sunday, Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and host of Fox News, asked Sec. Ben Carson if it was appropriate for Rolfe to use deadly force against Brooks, "whose original offense was that he fell asleep in the drive-thru lane at a Wendy's?"
Carson has been secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development since 2017 and is the only black member of Trump's almost all-white cabinet.
"I think this is a situation that is not clear cut, you know, like the callous murder that occurred in Minnesota (of George Floyd)," Carson answered. "And it really requires the heads of people who know what should be done under the circumstances to make judgment."
Again asked by Wallace why he didn't think Brooks' shooting was clear-cut murder, Carson said it's because he doesn't know what was on Rolfe's mind when he decided to pull-out his pistol and shoot Brooks in the back.
Carson said when somebody turns around, "points a weapon at him, is he absolutely sure that's a non-lethal weapon? You know, this is not a clear-cut circumstance."
The Taser stuns but doesn't kill the person it hits with a violent jolt of electricity. It's a dangerous but non-lethal weapon. Police known the weapon can't kill but only immobilize a suspect.
Carson's stunning defense of Rolfe closely resembled that of Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican senator from South Carolina, who told the CBS news talk show Face the Nation on Sunday pretty much the same thing. Scott is the only black Senator in the Republican Party, which continues to be associated with racism and white nationalism.
Scott said the situation in Georgia is certainly "a far less clear one" than the one we saw with George Floyd and several other ones, a statement that also argued the same thing as Carson. On the same day but on Fox news, Carson said the situation "is not clear cut, you know."
