Why would the Atlanta police show up for the job in the present circumstances? Why not just let the city burn?
Hours after a fired police officer was charged with felony murder for fatally shooting a man in the back, Atlanta police officers are not responding to calls in three of the department’s six zones, multiple sources within the Atlanta Police Department told CNN on Wednesday evening.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard earlier in the day announced 11 charges against Garrett Rolfe, who was fired after he shot Rayshard Brooks twice in the back on Friday night. A third shot hit a car with three people inside.
The police department said an unusual number of officers working the late shift had called out sick. The mayor said the city would be OK.
“There’s a lot happening in our cities and our police officers are receiving the brunt of it, quite frankly,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. She said the city has committed to the officers through a big pay raise, and “we expect that our officers will keep their commitment to our communities.”
She said she thinks morale is down tenfold. “We do have enough officers to cover us through the night,” she said. “Our streets won’t be any less safe because of the number of officers who called out. But it is just my hope again that our officers will remember the commitment that they made when they held up their hand and they were sworn in as police officers.”
The mayor didn’t say how many officers had called out.
Reports on Twitter actually claimed that officers were not responding to calls in all six zones. It must be all the racism and white supremacy in Atlanta government that is to blame. And, of course, those dratted Boogaloos.