Photos: Wikimedia Commons\YouTube
Rayshard Brooks‘ murderer Atlanta Police killer-cop Garrett Rolfe has just gotten his police job back.
In most jobs, if you are charged with murder—especially, if there is video evidence of said crime—your employment would most surely end abruptly. That is except if you are a white police officer who just unjustly took the life of a Black person. Which is exactly what just happened in Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta Police officer Garrett Rolfe was videotaped murdering Rayshard Brooks on June 12, 2020—a few weeks after the May 25th murder of George Floyd. Rolfe, who has been charged with eleven counts in the killing of Brooks—including felony murder was given his policing job back Wednesday.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms apparently pushed for and got Rolfe to be fired immediately after Brooks’ murder. Indeed, why should elected leaders, especially someone in an executive role, like a mayor, have to wait to fire a law enforcement officer who committed the crime of murder on tape? Yet that swift decision is now being called “unlawful” by some and is the basis for Rolfe’s reinstatement.
The Atlanta Civil Service Board has ruled that Mayor Lance-Bottoms, and Acting Police Chief Rodney Bryant, unlawfully fired Rolfe for murdering Brooks. Perhaps, the Black man who murdered one of his bosses in a Long Island, New York, Stop-And-Shop, after being fired, should ask for his job back.
We keep hearing from politicians that “no one is above the law” and about the concept of “equal justice under law.” For cops who love to brutalize and kill Black people those words don’t include Blacks.
Think of the perverse irony here, where Rolfe was just given his policing job back, after he perpetrated the crime of murder, because it was deemed his dismissal was done “unlawfully.” Doesn’t that send a lovely message about America’s so-called “rule of law?”
If that isn’t outrageous enough, this state-sponsored murderer of Black people is reportedly suing for back wages and benefits. It seems like there are many benefits to being a white officer who kills Black people in America.
The stunning news that this killer-cop was given his job back has some asking this important question: will this murderer be allowed to go back out onto the streets to patrol and possibly kill more Black people?
We are told Rolfe will be on “administrative [what exactly] duties” as his case moves through the legal process in Fulton County. Paid vacations are nice. Some are saying nothing in the local rules necessarily prevents Rolfe from being put back out on the streets.
Imagine that.
Rayshard Brooks’ real crime, for which he is laying in the graveyard right now, like so many others murdered by police, is because he was Black. In Brooks’ case, he fell asleep in a Wendy’s drive-thru while being Black–and, unfortunately, meet a state-sponsored white terrorist, in blue, who uses Black people as target practice.
That is how American policing “trains” white police officers.
The dishonest police apologists will do what they always do to excuse this racist white murderer: they will criminalize Brooks like the police legal defense did in the Chauvin murder trial. They will talk about Brooks being allegedly drunk and having a criminal record, as was done to excuse Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd. White America has done an extensive job of criminalizing Black America to dilute our political, and economic power, for generations.
This is why certain “crimes,” particularly drug arrests, show that the legal system dispenses “justice” much more punitively against Black people.
What kind of America are we living in in 2021?
Officer Garrett Rolfe used his badge as a cover to commit murder. The tapes tell us that.
Some excusers will also say Brooks is dead because he fought with police officer Rolfe. According to the theory of these people, we Black human citizens must always submit ourselves to white “authority,” even if they are racist murderers, once they are wearing a badge.
Of course, this rule is only to be followed by Black people. White people are exempt.
But Black life is just as precious as white life. And the idea that we Blacks must just lay down and die before sub-human white racists just because they are police must be forcefully rejected in this historical moment.
The reinstatement of officer Rolfe is yet another action that is upping the ante in our fight against institutional white supremacy which reigns in American policing.
In one sense, maybe the announcement of officer Rolfe’s reinstatement will end up as a blessing in disguise.
Because of the intense media coverage surrounding the cases of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—as well as the many other murders of Black people by police since last summer—the case of officer Rolfe’s murder of Brooks got lost in the shuffle, somewhat. This is a telling statement on just how deep the infection of institutional racism really is in policing.
There are many questions that must be asked now including: what is the current status of the prosecution of officer Rolfe?
Former Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard was the one who brought charges against officer Rolfe, but he lost his reelection bid to current Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is said to be trying to pass off the prosecution of Rolfe to Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr. Some are concerned Carr’s office will not prosecute this case vigorously and fairly—as was just done by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
This Rayshard Brooks murder case against Atlanta killer-cop Garrett Rolfe must now be fully scrutinzed by Black Americans.
There has already been a major white backlash in Georgia because Black political power, along with that of other minorities, delivered political power to Democrats and the Biden-Harris White House.
Another question to consider here is: will this case be used as a pushback cause, against the Black-led racial justice movement, by politically powerful police apologists who are angry that Derek Chauvin was just convicted for George Floyd’s murder?
