Breaking: City of Atlanta Reinstates Police Officer Fired Last Summer After Shooting Rayshard Brooks | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Ryan Saavedra.

    The City of Atlanta's Civil Service Board announced on Tuesday morning that it has reinstated police officer Garrett Rolfe, who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks last summer, because the city failed to give Rolfe his right to due process.

    The board released its decision Wednesday, writing:

• Due to the City's failure to comply with several provisions of the Code and the information received during witnesses' testimony, the Board concludes the Appellant was not afforded his right to due process. Therefore, the Board GRANTS the Appeal of Garrett Rolfe and revokes his dismissal as an employee of the APD.

    Rolfe shot and killed Brooks in the parking lot of a Wendy's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, last June after Brooks attacked Rolfe and another police officer who were attempting to take him into custody.

    The Daily Wire reported at the time:

• Police were called to a Wendy's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, because Brooks, 27, had fallen asleep behind the wheel of a car while in the drive-through, which was disrupting the movement of vehicles that were in line. The interaction between the police and Brooks was mostly calm until the attempted arrest following his breathalyzer, which showed that he was driving while drunk.

    Videos from the incident "indicate that during a physical struggle with officers, Brooks obtained one of the officer's Tasers and began to flee from the scene," the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said at the time. "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."

    The New York Times reported at the time Brooks was shot by the police officer who was chasing him after Brooks "looks behind him, points the Taser he is holding in Officer Rolfe's direction, and fires it."

    The Daily Wire added:

• Despite this information, many in the media and Democrat Party have claimed that Brooks was "murdered" while he was "complying" with the police officers and was being "cooperative." They have also claimed that Brooks had just fallen "asleep in" the car and was "not drivin[g]" and that he was "running for his life" because the police were the ones who "had to escalate it."
• Such claims are disputed by the body camera footage that was released by the Atlanta Police Department, which shows that the interaction that the officers and Brooks had was mostly respectful up until the moment the officers tried to place him under arrest for drunk driving, at which time Brooks tried to run, got into a psychical altercation with the officers, took one of their tasers, began running, and then fired the taser at one of the officers who was in pursuit.