The cop who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks outside a Wendy’s in Atlanta on Friday was accused of covering up an earlier officer-involved shooting, court documents reportedly reveal.
Former Atlanta Police officer Garrett Rolfe — who was fired for Brooks’ “unjustified” homicide — opened fire on black man Jackie Jermaine Harris in 2015 but failed to disclose the gunfire in the report he and his fellow arresting officers filed, The Guardian reported.
During a 2016 court hearing, Fulton County Judge Doris L. Downs blasted the officers for the deceit.
“None of the police put in the report that they shot the man — none of them. And they sent him to Grady (Memorial Hospital) with collapsed lungs and everything, and the report doesn’t mention it,” Downs said in court paperwork obtained by The Guardian.
“I am ethically going to be required to turn all of them in,” she said. “What the police did was wrong, and they will have to answer for what they did.”
Harris’ lawyer Serena Nunn reportedly said police admitted in their report that Harris was injured during the arrest, but they did not specify a shooting.
“Being shot in the back and ultimately having your lung collapse is something more than an injury that was caused during the incident,” she reportedly said.
“We do expect officers to uphold the law. I cannot think of a plausible reason as to why they would have omitted that information,” Nunn told the judge.
The prosecutor could not say why the shooting was not in the report.
It’s not unclear if any action was taken. The Atlanta Police Department and Fulton County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment, The Guardian said.
Harris was shot inside a truck after he rammed a police vehicle during a chase. He survived and eventually pleaded guilty to theft, property damage, fleeing arrest and damaging police property, the newspaper said.
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