Rayshard Brooks’s death at the hands of Atlanta police officers has officially been ruled a Homicide.
The Fulton County Medical Examiner has ruled Rayshard’ Brook’s shooting by two white police officers as a homicide. Not even a week from the day of George Floyd’s funeral, another black man is dead because of a cop.
It is becoming all too uncommon to get online and see a video of a black man being killed. Live streams, news reports, and the like go anywhere on the world wide web, and you can watch the murder of someone’s son. Eric Garner, Mike Brown, George Floyd, and now Rashard Brooks are just some of the names immortalized with police brutality. However, all of these men are more than only names or victims, before any other identity, they were their mother’s sons.
Before being shot twice in the back, Rayshard Brooks told police he was visiting his mother’s gravesite. A dying George Floyd called out for his dead mother as public servant drained the life out his body.
Due to years of propaganda and misinformation, the black man has become so criminalized that some forget he is human. The world has been trained through media, and public perception, that the African American male is to be feared.
This mentality is seen by the disproportionate rates at which they are punished in both the judicial and educational systems.
Every time an unarmed black man dies, outlets bring up his criminal behavior to justify his murder.
Pettie crimes like selling loosies, passing off fake money, or a DUI are now punishable by death.
In the video of his interaction with officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan, Rayshard Brooks was intoxicated. Yet, Brooks, like so many of the suspects on the now-canceled “cops” and “Pd Live,” deserved a “sleep it off” night in a holding cell, not death.
However, the fear of the black man has again cost someone their life, and may cost America it’s peace.
From a report on CNN, the video shows that after an initial scuffle, Brooks got hold of a taser and took off running. Officer Rolfe is seen running in pursuit of Brooks, also with a taser in hand. At some point, Rolfe switches his non-lethal force weapon, to his lethal weapon despite no further escalation.
At that moment, all of the fear Officer Rolfe had been programmed to feel towards black men showed itself. Rayshard Brooks had just physically bested him and another officer and punched him in the face. All of the things Rolfe had seen on TV about the black man being this ferocious predator was true, and he needed to take action to save himself.
At least, that’s what his social training as a white man and job training as an officer have taught him.
Conversely, those same trainings have taught methods that allow for white mass shooters to be apprehended unharmed, and even get treated to fast food.
The difference is, when white officers see a white suspect, they see themselves, they’re little brother, they see someone’s child.
What do guys think of Rayshard Brook’s death being ruled a homicide? Will Officers Garrett Rolfe and Daniel Brosnan be convicted?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
