The Atlanta police officer who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks was accused of covering up an earlier shooting he and other officers participated in, according to a judge who reviewed the case.
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Garrett Rolfe was fired by the Atlanta police department following what officials called the “unjustified” killing of Brooks on Friday. Rolfe shot Brooks twice in the back as Brooks ran away after a scuffle with officers when they attempted to arrest him. It was among a recent spate of killings of black men by white police officers, which have ignited a national uprising against police brutality and racism.
In August 2015, Rolfe and two other officers opened fire on Jackie Jermaine Harris, who they chased after he was caught driving a stolen truck, the Guardian can reveal after reviewing court documents on the incident.
However, the shooting was not reported by the police involved. Harris, like Brooks, is African American.
Harris rammed a police vehicle and officers shot at him several times inside the truck, striking Harris once and collapsing his lung. Harris survived and later pleaded guilty to charges including theft, property damage, fleeing arrest and damaging a police vehicle.
Judge Doris L Downs, during a 2016 court hearing, called the case a “disaster” and said “it’s the wildest case I’ve seen in my 34 years here.”
Downs said she was so troubled by officers failing to report the shooting that she wanted the matter investigated.
“None of the police put in the report that they shot the man – none of them. And they sent him to Grady [Memorial Hospital] with collapsed lungs and everything, and the report doesn’t mention it,” Downs said.
“I am ethically going to be required to turn all of them in.”
Downs even suggested state and federal authorities get involved.
She said: “What the police did was wrong, and they will have to answer for what they did.”
It is unclear if any action was taken. Downs could not be reached for comment.
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The Atlanta police department and Fulton county district attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it did not investigate the shooting, according to a spokesperson.
Harris echoed the judge’s concern about the officers’ conduct at his court hearing.
“I just don’t want them to get away with what they did to me,” said Harris, who was sentenced to time served and one year’s probation.
Rolfe was apparently not disciplined, according to a personnel file released by Atlanta police on Tuesday, which listed the 2015 incident only as a “firearm discharge” but did not say how the department addressed the incident. Rolfe could not be reached for comment.
Harris’s attorney Serena Nunn said police admitted in their report that Harris had been injured during the incident – but not that police shot him.
She said: “Being shot in the back and ultimately having your lung collapse is something more than an injury that was caused during the incident.”
“We do expect officers to uphold the law. I cannot think of a plausible reason as to why they would have omitted that information [about the shooting],” Nunn told the judge.
The prosecutor could not say why the shooting was not in the report.
Han Chung, who was then a Fulton county assistant district attorney, said: “I’ve heard some plausible reasons why this may have occurred. Now, I don’t know how credible those plausible reasons may be, and I haven’t heard it from those officers first-hand.”
Rolfe was the subject of four citizen’s complaints during his six years on the force, none of which were sustained by police. The department disciplined him for three other incidents, including once for “use of force” involving a firearm, a year after the Harris shooting.
In a letter to Downs sent from an Atlanta jail, Harris said the public would not be safe as long as Rolfe and the other officers who shot him continued to patrol the city.
“Not only have I been wronged, but society as well [has been wronged] by allowing this officer to continue to patrol our streets of Metro Atlanta,” Harris wrote.
hildebrand_rarity on June 17th, 2020 at 16:31 UTC »
Just like the Breonna Taylor report being nearly blank and listing her injuries as none. Looks like a common problem with the police.
Hepcatoy on June 17th, 2020 at 16:29 UTC »
So, none of the police are self reporting, and their buddies are helping keep it that way.
Isn’t their a ballistics test that can be performed to identify which firearm the bullet came from?
ParameciaAntic on June 17th, 2020 at 16:27 UTC »
So...he just shot himself? They took him to the emergency room with bullets in him, so it's not like they could deny shooting him.
How has this not been investigated for five years??