Burke County Sheriff Alfonzo Williams said Monday the use of deadly force by a police officer in Friday's fatal shooting in Atlanta was justified, The Augusta Chronicle reported.
Williams said the shooting has been made political by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the Atlanta Police Department, the Chronicle reported.
“I think it was a justified shooting based on the limited information that has been presented on the video and what I’ve seen on television,” Williams said, according to the Augusta newspaper. “It was completely justified, it follows all use-of-force policy guidelines and it just appears to me more of a politicization of the situation, which I think it’s very harmful to law enforcement.”
Rayshard Brooks, the black man shot by Atlanta police outside a Wendy's in the city's Southside on Friday night, suffered organ damage and blood loss from two gunshot wounds, the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office determined Sunday after completing an autopsy.
“His cause of death: gunshot wounds of the back,” an investigator from the medical examiner’s office told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Brooks grabbed one of the officer’s Tasers and began to run off before turning and pointing the Taser at the officer, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Williams cautioned that he had only seen the video and did not have access to all the statements, but based on what he saw, it was an appropriate use of force, the Chronicle reported.
“In this case, (Brooks) has fought with an officer, which he has committed a felony of obstruction of an officer, he removed a weapon from the officer’s belt and he turned towards the officers and fired the Taser,” Williams said, according to the Chronicle. “An officer is not expected to wait to see if he gets hit or not or injured or not before he returns fire. The moment he turned towards the officer and pointed what appeared to be a weapon, whether it was a Taser or an actual handgun, the officer would be justified in using deadly force.”
Other Augusta-area law enforcement agencies did not comment about the case, according to the Chronicle.
Lt. Jake Mahoney of the Aiken Department of Public Safety told the Chronicle the agency had not reviewed all the information. Capt. Eric Abdullah of the Aiken County Sheriff's Office told the Augusta newspaper the department did not have anything to share about the case.
Maj. Steve Morris of the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office told the Chronicle the agency did not have all the facts about the incident because it remains under investigation. Richmond County Chief Deputy Patrick Clayton told the Augusta newspaper the department did not wish to comment about an open investigation.
Williams said Bottoms is wrong about the shooting not being a justified use of force, the Chronicle reported. He doesn’t think there is an “ethical district attorney” in the state who would be able to indict the officer on a murder charge, the Augusta newspaper reported. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard has said he hoped to decide by midweek whether to charge the officers, The Associated Press reported.
Williams said Brooks' death should not be viewed the same as the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, the Chronicle reported.
A former Minneapolis police officer was charged with murder in Floyd's death, and three men have been charged in the Arbery case.
“The circumstances in the Rayshard Brooks case were totally different,” Williams said, according to the Chronicle. “Ahmaud Arbery was not committing a crime. George Floyd may have committed a crime, but at the time he was choked to death he was not, he was handcuffed, he was compliant. Brooks had committed a crime, taken a weapon from an officer, started to flee, the officers gave chase and he turned back towards the officers and fired the weapon,” the Chronicle reported.
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