The two Atlanta police officers involved in the death of Rayshard Brooks learned their fate Tuesday.
The special prosecutor overseeing the case announced Tuesday afternoon that he would not pursue charges against Atlanta Police Officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan.
Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, made the announcement during a 1:30 p.m. news conference in Morrow.
Our partners at The Atlanta Journal Constitution report that during the news conference, Skandalakis took time to emphasize the context around Brooks’ shooting. He specifically pointed out that the case against the officers is different than both the George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery cases.
“This case, its facts, are distinct to this case,” Skandalakis reportedly said. “But you can’t ignore the fact that all of this was happening around the same time.”
Brooks was killed on June 12, 2020 after he fell asleep in a car in a Wendy’s drive-through parking lot. When officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan confronted him, he grabbed Brosnan’s taser and tried to run away. Rolfe ran after Brooks and shot him after police say Brooks’ pointed the taser at Rolfe’s head.
Rolfe was subsequently charged with eleven crimes including felony murder, aggravated assault and more. Brosnan was charged with aggravated assault and two counts of violation of oath of office.
Skandalakis took the case over in 2021 from previous Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard. Howard’s successor, Fani Willis, essentially disqualified herself for a conflict of interest, and the attorney general appointed Skandalakis to take over.
This past June, two years after Brooks’ death, Skandalakis told WSB′s Mark Winne that he had three options when it came to handling the two officers’ cases, one of which was not to move forward with prosecuting the officers at all.
He said the other two options were presenting formal charges in the form of an indictment against one or both officers for a vote by a criminal grand jury. The other was to seek a special grand jury which would investigate and could recommend whether to send the case to a criminal grand jury for consideration of charges.
“Any time you have a death involved, there are a lot of emotions involved, and then you have the complication here, the complications of race and police officers being involved. so we understand the magnitude of this case,” Skandalakis said in June. “I can’t control the facts in this case. I can’t make everybody happy, and when you try to make everybody happy, no one is happy.”