Source: Officer who killed Rayshard Brooks to sue city of Atlanta

ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) - Days before the second anniversary of the police shooting that killed Rayshard Brooks, the attorney for reinstated Atlanta Police Officer Garrett Rolfe is filing a lawsuit on behalf of his client against the city of Atlanta and Fulton County, according to a source close to the case.

The suit will be filed Friday, according to the source.

It was June 12, 2020, when police responded to a call and found DUI suspect Rayshard Brooks asleep in the drive-through of a Wendy’s in southwest Atlanta. Videos of the incident showed that after Brooks failed a sobriety test, he resisted arrest, struggled with the officers, grabbed an officer’s Taser, and ran off.

As he ran, Brooks tried to fire the Taser toward the officer chasing him. That officer then drew his weapon and fired three shots. Brooks died soon after at a hospital.

The officer who fired the shots, Garrett Rolfe, was fired days later. But the city’s Civil Service Board later reinstated him, finding that his supervisors did not follow city code in dismissing him. He remains on leave.

“Justice is moving too slowly,” said attorney Gerald Griggs of the Georgia NAACP, which has supported Rayshard Brooks’s family since day one.

Griggs said with no indictment yet from special prosecutor Pete Skandalakis, he’s not surprised the officer is filing a civil suit. He said he’s just ready for justice in the case.

“We feel like something happened and it’s up to a jury to determine what happened, but we watched the tape,” Griggs said. “We saw what we believed happened. Again, a judge found probable cause to issue an arrest warrant, so we hope that they will take the appropriate steps under Title 17 and Title 16 of the official code of Georgia and proceed with the criminal process.”

Griggs said the NAACP will join Brooks’ family for a vigil Sunday at 4 p.m. at University Avenue and Prior Road in southwest Atlanta.

CBS46 is working to confirm the filing of the lawsuit with Rolfe’s attorney.

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