Conservative pundit Mark Levin asked why many media outlets have not reported on the background of Rayshard Brooks, a black man who was killed by police in Atlanta last week.
“So far, people in my business, broadcasting, have barely said a thing about it,” Levin said on his program Wednesday. “These websites and these news outlets, all but a handful, they don’t even tell us who Rayshard Brooks is, we know nothing about Rayshard Brooks except for what the lawyers for the family and the prosecutors say.”
Levin cited a story revealing more about Brooks’s past encounters with law enforcement in the Daily Mail, which he called “hardly a conservative paper.”
The Daily Mail report says that at the time of his death, Brooks was on probation for four crimes and could have been sent back to prison if he was arrested on DUI charges.
A video has surfaced of Brooks in February where he reflects on his time behind bars.
“I feel like it should be offered, you know, to certainly, I mean, every individual who has been through these things to be assigned to a certain person to help guide, you know,” he said of assistance when returning to society. “I mean that’s what probation … but probation is not there with you every day, like a mentor or something.”
“Could this be why …” Levin asked. “When the officers tried to handcuff him he turned physical?”
CNN host Van Jones also issued an op-ed Thursday, which says, “For a person on probation, as Brooks was, any contact with a police officer — for any reason — means an almost certain return to the horrors of a jail cell. It is safe to assume that Brooks did not want to go back to jail over sleeping in his car or failing a sobriety test, lose everything he had and be forced to start his life over again.”
Atlanta police on Friday were called to the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in the city because of a report of a man who had passed out in the establishment’s drive-thru. The officers, Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan, said when they arrived on the scene they suspected Brooks had been driving under the influence of alcohol.
Footage taken from the officer’s body cameras shows Rolfe administering Brooks a breathalyzer test, which he failed. When Rolfe attempted to take Brooks into custody he resisted, and a struggle between the three men ensued.
Brooks is seen in a separate video, taken by bystanders, taking a taser off of one of the officer’s belts and running away. At one point, Brooks turns around as officers chase him and fires the taser in their direction. Rolfe then fired his gun at Brooks, hitting him in the back twice and killing him.
On Wednesday, Fulton County prosecutors announced felony murder and 10 other charges against Rolfe, and an aggravated assault charge against Brosnan.
Per Georgia law, the cases against the two officers will go to a grand jury, which Levin said should consider Brooks’s criminal history even if it is not widely reported by media outlets.
“The New York Times could have revealed it, the Washington Post could have revealed it … they’re just gonna sit down, write what the prosecutor says and regurgitate it,” Levin said.
