"The police didn't come into this encounter hot," he said. Rolfe acted in accordance with Georgia law and Atlanta Police Department policy given the facts of the situation, he said. Porter said Brooks proceeded to "beat the crap" out of the two officers after Rolfe's lawful attempt to arrest him. Skandalakis called it "a peaceful encounter that all of a sudden becomes a violent encounter," saying that once Brooks took the Taser from Brosnan, he assumed an offensive position. Porter showed still images taken from videos to break down what happened once things turned violent. Skandalakis and former Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, who was co-counsel in the case, spent about an hour during the news conference walking through the details of the encounter between Brooks and the two officers. Pines, Bill Thomas and Lance LoRusso said Rolfe will not be making a statement at this point. "This was the proper and only decision that could be reached based upon the evidence and Georgia law," Brosnan attorneys Don Samuel and Amanda Clark Palmer said in an emailed statement. The two officers' lawyers have said their actions were justified. Stewart said the family will continue its fight for justice in civil court, where they have a lawsuit pending. Something that complicated should have been presented to a grand jury of Fulton County citizens to decide whether charges were merited, the family's lawyers said. He and his law partner, Justin Miller, noted that the prosecutors said they had to hire experts and break down the encounter video frame by video frame to reach a decision. But they decided to use lethal force as a man was running away – 19 feet away," he said. They chose not to when they were justified. Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Brooks' family, said Tuesday that Brooks should not have fought with the officers and that if they had used deadly force during that fight, they would have been completely justified. Police Chief Erika Shields resigned less than 24 hours after Brooks died, and protesters set fire to the Wendy's, which was later demolished. Rolfe fired his gun, and an autopsy found that Brooks was shot twice in the back.
Brooks grabbed a Taser from one of the officers and fled, firing it at Rolfe as he ran. Then, when the officers told Brooks he'd had too much to drink to be driving and tried to arrest him, Brooks resisted in a struggle caught on dash camera video. Police body camera video shows the two officers having a calm conversation with Brooks for roughly 40 minutes. On June 12, 2020, police responded to complaints of a man sleeping in a car in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy's restaurant. Brooks every benefit of the doubt and, you know, unfortunately, by his actions, this is what happened." "This is a case in which the officers were willing to give Mr. "This isn't one of those cases," he said.
Skandalakis said he believes that context is important and acknowledged that encounters between police and the African-American community are sometimes "very volatile," but he said he doesn't believe race played a role in this instance.
Sometimes-violent protests over Floyd's death had largely subsided in Atlanta, but Brooks' killing set off a new round of demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice. The shooting happened against the backdrop of heightened tensions and protests nationwide after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer less than three weeks earlier. Given the quickly changing circumstances, was it objectively reasonable that he used deadly force? And we conclude it was," Skandalakis said of Rolfe. "We did not look at this with 20/20 hindsight. Officer Garrett Rolfe, who shot and killed Brooks in June 2020, and Officer Devin Brosnan faced a "quickly evolving" situation when Brooks lunged and grabbed one of their Tasers during an arrest attempt, said Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia. Two white Atlanta police officers who clashed with Rayshard Brooks acted reasonably during the 2020 encounter that ended with the 27-year-old Black man's fatal shooting, a specially appointed prosecutor said Tuesday in announcing his decision not to pursue charges against them.
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