I still don’t understand what is taking so long to arrest and charge the Atlanta police officers, Garrett Rolfe and Davin Brosnan who, worse than Derek Chauvin and his team in Minneapolis, cold-bloodedly executed Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta Georgia on Friday night, June 12, 2020. Is the foot-dragging in the case due to the fact that Atlanta’s mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the district attorney Paul Howard Jr. and a host of key city officials are indeed black? Or must we blame it on the pathetic uncle toms like Ben Carson and Tiger Woods casting doubt over the similarity between the Atlanta and Minnesota executions?
I cannot understand District Attorney Paul Howard Jr.’s lame excuse that he is waiting for additional forensic evidence to confirm that the shell casings of the rounds that killed Brooks were discharged from one of the officer’s weapons before effecting arrest and charges. Garrett Rolfe, the officer seen firing the fatal shots to Rayshard’s back should have been arrested and charged that very day he was dismissed from the force following the resignation of police chief Erika Shield.
Whether we like to admit it or not I believe the surreptitious white-supremacist forces are once again applying every mechanism to minimize the charges against the two white cops or even secure their freedom. I mentioned in my previous paper the same clandestine conspiracy to exploit loopholes in the legal system to exonerate the white police officers responsible for murdering George Floyd; and like I predicted about rookie cop Thomas Lane standing the chance of eventually going free, he has finally been granted bail of $750,000.00. Where will that huge amount money come from?
The most annoying argument in the Atlanta incident are the reference to why Rayshard Brooks had to resist arrest and his failure of a sobriety test. Seriously? Even some white CNN journalists usually echoing fairer sentiments in such racially bias police conducts are sounding guileless over the resistance and sobriety nonsense.
Let us be frank to ourselves folks, do you think George Floyd with all his strength and posture would have easily surrendered to those white-killer cops, allowed them to handcuff and choke him to death if he had watched that kind of video of another black victim a month or so earlier? With the senseless brutality of snuffing his life in broad daylight, shameless cynics were still trying to blame him for being in possession of a counterfeit $20.00 bill as if that crime had justified his execution. Trust me, few black men will now readily surrender to white officers with guns and handcuffs after the George Floyd lynching.
By comparison therefore I believe Brooks like most African-Americans lately are scared to death by the prospect of meekly allowing white police officers to handcuff and kill them. After replaying the crime scene of George Floyd over and over in our minds, most black people have developed deeply-seated fears of being subjected to the same execution of which Brooks was not an exception. Factor that fear with his state of drunkenness at that moment of the night with his reasoning impaired when two white officers descended on him, armed with guns, Tasers and handcuffs. For almost 30 minutes he tried to negotiate with them explaining how he was so tired from spending the whole day preparing for his daughter’s eighth birthday and further pleading to even leave his car at the parking lot and walking back to his sister’s house a couple of blocks away.
He was unquestionably scared perhaps fearing his fate to be like that of George Floyd’s.
In the 911 call from the Windy’s restaurant the police dispatcher was provided with a good description of the victim’s car, registration number and above all, his condition. That he was an unarmed black man, seemingly drunk and sleeping in his car on the drive-thru.
Given the ongoing white-cops-killing-black-men watershed all over the nation, why didn’t the dispatcher assign the call to black police officers? In the nation’s quest to reform the criminal justice system, commonsense should have dawned on her to think of sending black police officers to handle the case. Without doubt black officers would have deescalated the situation by appearing less threatening to Rayshard than the “angels-of-death” he perceived when the white officers showed up and unreasonably wanted to handcuff him. To him, it was the whole George Floyd execution episode flashing before his eyes.
That is when resistance to escape from being handcuffed and choked to death took over his instincts. And he fought hard like anybody fighting for his life embarrassing the officers by almost escaping their tough and rough techniques to subdue him. Animals in general tend to be extraordinarily powerful when in desperate fight for their lives.
With all the information gathered about him and his car left at the parking lot, the police could have let him go and arrest him later. His only crime of drunk-driving is a moving violation with maximum penalty in New York City of a $150 ticket and few points on one’s license. Not a death-sentence crime, after all.
But since their wonted intention is to go out there and kill unarmed black man, the white police officers simply quench their thirst of black blood.
In my opinion, both police officers should have by now been arrested and charged with murder.
On a final note African-Americans should stop searching for meaning from UncleToms like Tiger Woods and Ben Carson when it comes to injustice against black people. They are a disgrace to the black race.
Last but not the least, banning chokeholds in all states is quite welcomed which has been an unacceptable technique used by police officers to kill black suspects; however, what America could do best for black people is expunge the criminal record of hundreds and thousands of young black men and women incarcerated for inconsequential offenses such as smoking marijuana and petty thefts of which whites commit more than blacks but are absolved when apprehended. These young black men and teenagers are criminalized very early in their lives, shutting down all their opportunities for rehabilitation even if they genuinely desired to improve their lives. In other words, once these kids are locked up, all opportunities to go back to school, get good jobs, vote in elections or starting businesses of their own are permanently shut down, leaving them with no option but to adopt illegal means of survival.
In their youthful days, Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama have been confirmed to have, at some point, used illicit drugs, including marijuana. Their lives would have been crushed if they were unlucky and caught for smoking a “joint” and would have certainly ended all their chances of being presidents.
American prison reform system that should form part of the comprehensive overhaul of the criminal justice system should definitely start with expunging the records of black young men always unfairly incarcerated and disproportionately.
Thanks reading. Till next time.
Samsudeen Sarr
New York City
