Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic Georgia gubernatorial nominee, on Monday reacted to Rayshard Brooks’ death in Atlanta during a confrontation with police.
Abrams said on CNN’s “New Day” that Brooks’ death is akin to George Floyd’s in Minneapolis, saying the decision to shoot him in the back was not justified. She added, “it was murder” by the Atlanta police.
“This is a man who had been frisked, so they knew he did not possess a deadly weapon,” Abrams outlined. “They knew that he was impaired because he had parked in that driveway, and they knew when he ran away that he did not pose a danger that was a deadly force incentive. The decision to shoot him in the back was one made out of maybe impatience or frustration or panic, but it was not one that justifies deadly force. It was murder.”
She continued, “[L]et’s assume every single narrative that … he had driven while drunk, he parked and caused inconvenience to those who had to drive around him. At no point did he present a danger that warranted his death. That’s what we’re talking about. A murder because a man-made a mistake — not a mistake that would have cost the police officer his life, but a mistake that was caused out of some form of dehumanization of Rayshard Brooks.”
Host Alisyn Camerota pointed out that Brooks had one of the officer’s tasers, but Abrams argued that a taser is not a “deadly weapon” that justified him being shot.
“Any time we’re attempting to justify the murder of a man because he had — number one because he embarrassed the police by taking their taser, and two, because he was running on foot, that we decide that it is worth killing him — every moment of justification is a moment of dehumanization,” Abrams advised. “That’s the problem. And let’s not get distracted. The distraction that happens is that we try to find reasons that murder is acceptable when a black man or a black woman is the victim, and that should not happen.”
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