Rayshard Brooks

Rayshard Brooks of Atlanta, Georgia, United States was one of the African-American people who died in the hands of white cops during the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It was one of the deaths that reignited the Black Lives Matter movement in the country.

On June 12, 2020, the Atlanta Police Department received a call from a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant at 125 University Avenue in Peoplestown, Atlanta. According to the report, a man was sleeping in his car in the drive-through.

Because the car was blocking the drive-through, other customers had to drive around it to pick up their orders, according to the complaint. At around 10:30 p.m. that night, Atlanta Police Department officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Bronsan arrived at the parking lot of the restaurant.

The man in the vehicle was Brooks, who failed the field sobriety test performed by Rolfe. The African-American man also failed to correctly identify the city he was in, saying he was on Old Dixie Highway in Forest Park, an Atlanta suburb about 10 miles away from the Wendy’s restaurant where he was found sleeping.

While the encounter started as a calm one, it ended in the death of Brooks. Here are 13 more things about  him:

1. He attended Forest Park Street School in Forest Park, Georgia.
2. He was married to Tomika Miller.
3. He told Bronson that he had one and a half margaritas that night before taking a preliminary breathalyzer test. The reading came back at .108, which was slightly above the legal limit of blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 grams under Georgia law.
4. He resisted when Rolfe tried to handcuff him. He stole Bronsan’s Taser and pointed it at them and Rolfe shot him.
5. He was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
6. He underwent surgery in Grady Memorial Hospital but was pronounced dead afterwards.
7. Hours before his death, he celebrated his eldest daughter’s eighth birthday and had planned on taking her skating the next day.
8. He has two more daughters born in 2018 and in 2019 and a stepson born in 2007.
9. He had an internship at the Atlanta Falcons Football Club, which entered the National Football League in 1966.
10. He worked at a Mexican restaurant.
11. He was part of the ARK Restoration and Construction team in Toledo, Ohio, USA.
12. He has a cousin named Decatur Redd and a sister-in-law named Crystal Brooks.
13. He died at the age of 27.