Family members of Rayshard Brooks were overcome with emotion Monday morning as they addressed a room of reporters in Atlanta.
Jymaco Brooks was in the middle of describing Rayshard, who was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer over the weekend, when a family member could take no more.
“I have to go. Y’all took my cousin from me,” said a cousin of Brooks who had to be consoled as he left the room. “I want y’all to know that y’all took my cousin from me. Y’all took the wrong person. That wasn’t the person to take.”
Brooks was shot and killed by Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe after he was found asleep behind the wheel of a vehicle parked in a Wendy’s parking lot Saturday. Brooks, who reportedly had been drinking, tussled with officers before running away from them. Brooks turned to shoot what appeared to be a Taser taken from the officers and was killed during the altercation. On Sunday, the Fulton County medical examiner ruled that Brooks’ death was a homicide.
“I didn’t come down here to talk to the media. I came to love all my people,” said Jymaco Brooks. “If you asked how this young black man was, look at your children when you see them laugh. That innocence, that joy, that pureness of soul, and you’d have a glimpse of what we lost. You have a glimpse of what it feels like. Because tomorrow, we gonna have to deal with it again. We gonna have to bury him. We gonna have to say we miss you, and if we didn’t say, ‘We love you,’ enough, we got to apologize to him for not telling him that we loved him that much.”
Brooks’ widow, Tamika Miller, said she was thankful for all the protests but called for peace amid rising tensions after video of the minutes leading up to Brooks’s death prompted protesters to set the Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was killed on fire.
“There’s no justice that can ever make me feel happy about what’s been done,” Miller said. “It’s gonna be a long time before I heal. It’s gonna be a long time before this family heals. Like I said, I’m just thankful for everything that everyone is out there doing, and I just ask that if you could just keep it as a peaceful protest, that would be wonderful because we want to keep his name positive and great.”
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said Sunday that his office is considering filing charges against Rolfe and would decide on the matter sometime this week. The charges being considered include murder, felony murder, and involuntary manslaughter.
Brooks’s death comes amid a national conversation about police brutality and systemic racism sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died last month after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Attorney L. Chris Stewart said he expected to see reporters again “in a few months” when he anticipates he will have another case similar to the death of Brooks.
“I’m not sure what else America needs to see,” Stewart said. “Sadly, I’m probably gonna be back here in a few months with another case.”
