President Donald Trump has weighed in on the shooting of Rayshard Brooks, saying “you can’t resist a police officer” and that, more widely, police have not been treated fairly.
His comments during a Fox news interview came after Garrett Rolfe, the Atlanta officer who fatally shot Brooks in the back after he fled with a stun gun, was charged with felony murder among other charges.
Prosecutors said Brooks, who was black, posed no threat when he was gunned down and that the white officer kicked him and offered no medical treatment as he lay dying on the ground.
Trump said on Wednesday “you can’t resist a police officer” and said he heard an explanation from Rolfe’s lawyer that the officer heard a sound like a gunshot and saw a flash in front of him.
“I don’t know that I would have necessarily believed that, but I will tell you, that’s a very interesting thing and maybe that’s so,” Trump said. “They are going to have to find out. It’s up to justice right now. It’s going to be up to justice. I hope he gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country. They have not been treated fairly.”
Brooks was holding a stun gun he had snatched from officers but was 18 feet(5.5 metres) away when he was shot by Rolfe and was running away at the time, the District Attorney Paul Howard said in announcing the charges five days after the killing outside a Wendy’s restaurant rocked the city.
Following the charges, Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, said morale in the police department was “down ten-fold”. In an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, Bottoms said, “we expect our officers will keep their commitment to our communities” amid reports that officers were calling in sick.
The shooting sparked new demonstrations in Georgia’s capital against police brutality, after occasionally turbulent protests in response to George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis had largely simmered down. The Atlanta police chief, Erika Shields, resigned less than 24 hours after Brooks died.