Atlanta Police Chief Resigns After Officer Shoots Black Man During Arrest

The chief of police in the American city of Atlanta resigned after an officer fatally shot a black man during an arrest, the mayor said Saturday, and the new murder injected new anger into protests against racism and brutality. Police.

Protesters blocked an interstate highway and set fire to Wendy's, where Rayshard Brooks, 27, died Saturday night, local media reported.

This occurred hours after Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has been touted as a possible candidate for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, announced the resignation of Chief Erika Shields.

Brooks had been asleep in his car at a Wendy's fast food restaurant on Friday night, and employees called police to complain that he was blocking other customers, according to an official report.

He failed a sobriety test and resisted when police tried to arrest him, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.

Surveillance video showed "that during a physical fight with officers, Brooks obtained one of the officer's Tasers and began to flee the scene," the report continued.

"The officers chased Brooks on foot and during the chase, Brooks turned and pointed the Taser at the officer. The officer fired his gun and hit Brooks," he said.

Brooks was taken to a hospital but died after surgery, he said, adding that an officer was injured.

The riots come as the United States faces a landmark trial on systemic racism, with massive civil unrest sparked by the May 25 murder of another African-American man, George Floyd, while in police custody.

Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Protests that spread across the country first and then around the world in the weeks that followed have forced a conversation about the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and white violence against people of color, as well as the militarization of the police. in United States.

Shields had worked for the Atlanta Police Department for more than two decades.

"Because of her desire for Atlanta to be a model of what meaningful reform should be like across the country, Chief Shields offered to immediately retire as chief of police," the mayor said in televised remarks.

From NDTV News