Police Shooting Victim's Wife Angry DA Won't Prosecute Case

ATLANTA, GA — Tomika Miller was floored when she learned the case against Atlanta police officers who fatally shot her husband, Rayshard Brooks, was being passed along by the prosecutor.

“When I received this message on the media, I fell to my knees and I cried,” Miller said Thursday at a press conference.

Newly elected Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced last week that her office would turn the murder case against Atlanta Police Officer Garrett Rolfe over to the office of Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr.

Citing concerns that a charge of felony murder — causing death when committing an underlying felony — and related charges filed against Rolfe and fellow officer Devin Brosnan were made by former District Attorney Paul Howard during a heated election, Willis passed the case to the attorney general to either prosecute or hand over to another area prosecutor, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“My predecessor obtained arrest warrants against the following defendants for incidents that occurred during the campaign,” Willis wrote last week in a letter to Carr that was obtained by the AJC. “I believe his conduct, including using video evidence in campaign television advertisements, may have violated Georgia Bar Rule 3.8(g).”

A spokesman for the District Attorney's office could not be reached for comment.

The 27-year-old Brooks was shot and killed the night of June 12, 2020, after struggling with Rolfe and Brosnan and taking one of the officers’ Taser as he escaped. The two officers were trying to arrest Brooks, who had failed a field sobriety test after falling asleep in his car at a Wendy’s parking lot.

Rolfe, who fired two shots at the fleeing Brooks, has long contended he acted in self-defense because Brooks struck him and fired the Taser at him. The police department fired Rolfe.

The incident sparked protests decrying excessive police force against Black people in Atlanta, where many were already charged up about the death just weeks prior of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota.

“The city was in an uproar and we had just witnessed George Floyd, and we had been protesting for about 13 days when Atlanta became Ground Zero for the social justice revolution,” said Atlanta NAACP President Gerald Griggs.

But some resorted to violence and subsequently, the Wendy’s was burned to the ground by individuals believed to be taking advantage of the tense atmosphere.

Thursday, Miller and Griggs were joined by protesters of The People’s Uprising, including Georgia State Rep. Erica Thomas, and Atlanta City Council member Antonio Brown, in expressing their disappointment at Willis and asking another prosecutor to take the case from the state.

“As we stand here, we’re asking for the city … and the state to support this case going to a municipality … another county that can truly be able to give this case a fair chance,” Brown said.

Activist Kimberly Jones said that in addition to Brooks’ case, Willis chose to unhand a case against six police officers accused of using a Taser on a pair of students from Morehouse College and Spelman College during protests of the Floyd death.

“We made a promise to the people that we were writing a new contract that they were finally going to see justice,” Jones said. “How do people in this city feel that they get that justice when two college kids get tased, the people who Tased them are going back to work with back pay? That’s not justice.”

Members of The People’s Uprising promised to march through the city Thursday afternoon in protest of the cases being moved from Willis’ office.

This is an ongoing story. Please return to Patch.com for updates.