Dead Atlanta DUI Suspect Faced Serious Jail Time if Arrested

According to a report from The Daily Mail, Rayshard Brooks was on probation and could have potentially received a prison sentence.

The fear of incarceration likely caused Brooks to lose his composure as he faced a potential arrest and tried to escape arrest.

Brooks ended up being shot and killed on Friday, June 12, 2020 when cops received a 911 call to the Wendy’s at University Avenue in Atlanta. Brooks was found drunk and asleep at the wheel of his car while blocking the fast food restaurant’s drive-thru lane.

At the start, Brooks was relatively calm with the officers during the 20-minute period which officers Devin Brosnan and Garrett Rolfe asked him about how much he was drinking and how he ended up asleep in his car at the drive-thru.

Towards the end of the fatal encounter, Brooks told officers that he could walk home claiming that it wasn’t far.

However, things changed after Brooks failed a field sobriety test and blew 0.108 when he was subject to a breathalyzer exam. Rolfe then proceed to cuff Brooks who instantly fought back, which caught both officers off-guard.

In the fight that ensued, one of the officers shouted “stop fighting” and warned him, “You’re going to get tased,” as the incident started getting more violent.

According to The Daily Mail, Brooks “pleaded guilty and for which he was still on probation dated back to August 2014 when he was convicted on four counts – False Imprisonment, Simple Battery/Family, Battery Simple and Felony Cruelty/Cruelty to Children.”

On the first count, Brooks was tried in Clayton County and sentenced to seven years, “with one year in prison and six on probation and 12 months for each of the other three counts, sentences to be served concurrently.”

His sentence ended up being amended and was sent back to prison for 12 months in July 2016 when he violated his probation terms.

Brooks stayed out of trouble since that year until last December when he traveled to Ohio without letting his probation officer know and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

That warrant would end up being revoked and the case was dismissed when he returned to Georgia on January 6.

Brooks’ wife, Tomika Miller, claimed he was a “devoted husband to her and loving father to their three daughters and his stepson.”

On CNN, Miller described her husband as a happy person who always cheered her up and her children.

The Fulton County Medical Examiner ruled Brooks’ death a homicide after conducting an autopsy on June 2014.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations are still investigating the shooting and Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard is entertaining the introduction of charges against officer Rolfe who fired three times with two bullets hitting Brooks in the back.

Howard claimed that Rolfe would have trouble arguing self-defense, despite clear evidence of Brooks grabbing Brosnan’s taser and turning to use the stun gun against Rolfe as he was chasing him.

Howard declared that a Taser is not a lethal weapon, thus the officers’ lives were not in danger.

Miller said she is not mad with the officer who killed her husband because “God will deal with that.”

She continued, “I know my husband would never want me to be upset with them or hold that feeling in my heart. He was a very forgiving person.”