Rayshard Brooks Shooting: Trump Says 'You Can't Resist a Police Officer'

President Donald Trump on Wednesday called the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta a "terrible situation”, but insisted the latter should not have resisted arrest and fled while in possession of a taser wrested away from the police during a struggle.

Trump’s opinion of the incident was clearly on the side of the police, which he mentioned in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News:

• "I thought it was a terrible situation, but you can’t resist a police officer. And, you know, if you have a disagreement you have to take it up after the fact."
• "I hope he gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country. They have not been treated fairly.”
• "But, again, you can’t resist a police officer like that. And they ended up in a very terrible disagreement and look at the way it ended. Very bad. Very bad."

The Friday (June 12) arrest of Brooks, captured on video, was not a violent exchange in the beginning when the police approached his car at about 11.00 p.m. where he was found asleep in the drive-through lane of a Wendy’s restaurant.

The Intelligencer, a daily morning newspaper published in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, reported the accounts of what followed as given by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI).

The report said the white officers, Devin Brosnan and Garrett Rolfe, gave Brooks, who is African American, a sobriety test. When the officers tried to put Brooks under arrest, he “resisted and a struggle ensued,” prompting one of the cops to deploy his taser. Brooks was able to grab the taser before fleeing.

According to the GBI, the “officers pursued Brooks on foot, and during the chase, Brooks turned and pointed the taser at the officer. The officer fired his weapon, striking Brooks.”

What happened next was shown in pictures displayed by Fulton County district attorney Paul Howard, who announced Wednesday that Rolfe and Brosnan would face criminal charges. The pictures showed Brosnan standing on Brooks’ shoulders on the ground after he was shot and Rolfe kicking him. According to the DA, the officers waited for more than two minutes before administering first aid.

The aftermath of the shooting resulted in the Wendy’s restaurant being destroyed by fire and the resignation of Atlanta’s police chief Erika Shields.

The death of Brooks has added to the tensions between police and the public nationwide over racial injustice and cop brutality directed at black men. The massive demonstrations, after the killing of George Floyd on May 25 and now Brooks, will likely continue.

On Tuesday, one day before the Hannity interview, Trump signed an executive order to get federal funding for police departments to go through de-escalation training. Congress continues its debate over a set of policing reforms that would increase accountability and reporting requirements for law enforcement and place restrictions on the use of chokeholds.