Another round of riots broke out in Atlanta over the weekend, this time over the police shooting of a man named Rayshard Brooks. The media is quick to tell us that the deceased is a black man and the officer who shot him is white, but Brooks’ race appears to be far less relevant than his behavior in this case.
Police were originally called to a local Wendy’s on Friday night after Brooks fell asleep behind the wheel in the drive-thru lane. When officers arrived and noticed a strong scent of alcohol, along with the other obvious indicators of drunkenness, they asked him to take a sobriety test. When his blood alcohol content came back well over the legal limit, they attempted to make an arrest.
Up to this point, the officers were polite and calm. But Brooks decided to escalate the situation. He resisted arrest, assaulted the officers, stole a taser, fired it at them, ran, and then, in a final gratuitously reckless act, he turned while running and pointed the taser at the cops. It was only at this point, after Brooks had done literally everything in his power to turn a non-violent encounter into a violent encounter, that one of the officers shot and killed him. All of this was caught on tape, in full context. You can watch it below.
Here’s the full video. Cops were polite, reasonable. Brooks assaulted them, stole a taser, shot the taser at them multiple times, and finally was killed. If you’re trying to make these cops into racist killers, you’re just a dishonest person.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 14, 2020
The officer who fired the shot has already been terminated and may face charges. The police chief has resigned. The Wendy’s was burned to the ground. Activists and leftists are insisting that this is yet more proof that black men are being targeted for extermination by racist cops. We are told that Brooks was killed “because he was sleeping in his car,” as if the police showed up and carried out a summary execution as punishment for sleepiness. This is to yadda-yadda right past the part where Brooks committed a series of violent felonies against two police officers who were merely trying to get a drunk man off the street before he killed himself or someone else.
Could the cops have responded differently? In the moments before the shots were fired, no. They did everything by the book. They were professional and reasonable. As for the that fatal shot, yes, the officer perhaps could have made a different choice in hindsight. But hindsight is a privilege enjoyed by those of us who are watching this all play out, after the fact, from the comfort of our homes. In the heat of the moment, from the officer’s perspective, they have been thrust suddenly from the routine matter of arresting a drunk driver, to a violent struggle with a now-armed assailant. As he runs away and points something at them, do they know it’s the taser? Could it be a gun he had on him? And if it is a taser, what if he hits one of them and then comes back for the gun while the officer is incapacitated? These are all calculations these cops must make in a split second. The question is not whether shooting Brooks makes sense to you, watching the footage three days later, from your couch, while casually sipping a cup of coffee. The question is whether it could have reasonably made sense to them, from their perspective, out there in the thick of it. And I think the answer to that question is yes.
But let’s put the decision-making process of the police officers to the side for a moment. What about the choices made by Brooks himself? Were his choices justified? Was his use of force excessive? Was he behaving in a way that respects the lives of the officers, and those around him, and even himself? What responsibility does he carry?
Every time something like this happens, we talk about what the actions of the cops — what they should have done, what they could have done, what they might have done better — yet we rarely bother to ask these same questions of the often-violent suspect who initiated the encounter by committing a crime, and then turned it violent by resisting arrest, and sometimes going quite a bit further than that, as Brooks did. We hold the officers 100 percent responsible for everything, while holding the suspect responsible for nothing. Is he an infant? A pre-programmed robot? Is he not a thinking, choice-making agent, acting on his own volition? Leftists activists and protesters would appear to answer no, he is not responsible for anything, even his own choices.
Consider the irrationality of this position. What they’re really saying is that Brooks should have been able to assault police officers, steal their taser, and fire it at them, without being killed. Try saying that out loud to see how it feels: “I think a man should be able to assault a cop, steal his taser, and fire it at him, without being killed.” That is obviously lunacy, and it would lead to the complete breakdown of law and order if it were actually applied.
It is sad that this man is dead, just as it is sad anytime someone dies. But it is sad because Brooks threw his own life away for no reason. It is sad that he made the choices that he made and brought his death on himself. He is responsible. He paid the price, and it’s a sad price indeed. But it’s the price anyone is at the risk of paying if they make the choices that this man made. This is not a story of police brutality. It’s a story of a man named Rayshard Brooks, who did a bad thing by driving drunk, and followed it up with an enormously stupid and reckless thing by assaulting a cop and stealing his taser. And after that night filled with bad, stupid, reckless choices, he died. As so many others have, after nights like that. And that is not the fault of any police officer.
Continue reading this exclusive article and join the conversation, plus watch free videos on DW+
Already a member?
