Twists and turns in the United States in several cases incriminating the police in the death of African-Americans. In the emblematic Breonna Taylor case, it was a police officer who pleaded guilty to having provided false information to obtain a search warrant, the execution of which had led to the death of the young woman. On March 13, 2020, three police officers in Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, broke into the home of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in the middle of the night as part of a drug trafficking investigation targeting her ex-boyfriend. friend.
His new companion, Kenneth Walker, believed they were burglars and fired a shot with a legally owned gun. The police responded and Breonna Taylor received around 20 bullets. Kelly Goodlett, who has since resigned, admitted to having “falsified” with another police officer the request for a search warrant addressed to a judge, and then to have lied “to cover up the initial false statements”. She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Charges against two other police officers
In Atlanta, on the other hand, it is time for misunderstanding after the abandonment of the charges against two white police officers, charged with the death in 2020 of Rayshard Brooks, another African-American. Constable Garrett Rolfe was charged with “murder” after firing two bullets in the back of the victim, his colleague Devin Brosnan for “assault and violation of his oath”. The prosecutor specially appointed for this case, Peter Skandalakis, announced on Tuesday that he had concluded that in the face of “the rapidly changing circumstances”, the reaction of the police officer had been “objectively reasonable” and that the charges against the two agents would be dropped.
The tragedy took place after the two police officers were called to remove Rayshard Brooks, asleep in his car, from the drive-in aisle of a Wendy’s restaurant. The young man, alcoholic, had however been cooperative for more than half an hour before the situation degenerated when the agents had wanted to handcuff him: he had seized the Taser from one of the police officers and had ran away. He then fired that stun gun at them and Garrett Rolfe shot him twice in the back.
Lawyers for Rayshard Brook’s widow have denounced a “puzzling” decision and announced their intention to seek further legal remedies, according to local channel FOX5, and the American civil rights organization NAACP demanded that the case goes to a grand jury. “There is no statute of limitations on a murder case, and there will be no statute of limitations on our efforts to get justice for Rayshard Brooks,” the NAACP president commented in Georgia State, Gerald Griggs.