Meghan McCain says Rayshard Brooks was shot dead as he was black: ‘I've been drunk at Wendy's and wasn't shot'
'The View' host Meghan McCain has suggested that Rayshard Brooks was shot dead by Atlanta police because he was black. Addressing the issue during June 15's broadcast of the show, the TV personality also called for police training reform. "I think we need to focus on training in de-escalation for the police department. That seems to be a huge issue here. This case is so sad because he wasn’t armed and he was in his car. ... He was running away,” McCain said.
According to reports, Brooks was sleeping in his car in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy's on Friday, June 12, when two Atlanta police officers -- Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan -- approached him. They first calmly talked to the 27-year-old black father-of-four for more than 20 minutes. However, when Brooks resisted arrest during a sobriety check and began to run away after snatching one of the officer's tasers, the cops followed him. Shortly afterward, Rolfe allegedly shot Brooks, who later died at the hospital after undergoing surgery, as per Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which has launched an independent investigation into the shooting.
"I hope this doesn’t sound trite, but I’ve certainly been drunk at a Wendy’s before, and I wasn’t shot," McCain said on the show. The 35-year-old author then went on to compare the treatment of Brooks to that of white supremacist and mass murderer Dylann Roof, who killed nine black men and women in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
“So I don’t understand how we’re going from different situations where some shooters are, literally after committing massacres — Dylann Roof, I believe was brought through a fast-food restaurant on his way to being arrested and taken down to the police department,” McCain said while expressing her shock. “And another person who is in his car and trying to do the right thing —and he offered to walk home — is then in, a few moments being shot three times,” she said, adding: “We need to focus on the specific form of training of de-escalating instead of militarizing and escalating."
McCain's co-host Joy Behar agreed with her and said: “I don't really understand why the cops can't be trained to take a different tack with people. He did not have a weapon. Okay, he was pointing a taser at them. It's still not a deadly weapon. There's no reason to shoot the guy dead. My God. He has children, he has a wife, he has a family."
Another co-host of Sunny Hostin, who is a lawyer, said: “Even if the fact pattern comes out that he had a taser, a taser is just not a deadly weapon. And the autopsy shows that he was shot twice in the back.” The 51-year-old then explained that the Supreme Court has found that fleeing the scene or running away is "not a justifiable use of deadly force." "I don't really think this is a close call at all," Hostin added.
Meanwhile, another report claimed that Rolfe was fired from his position after the shooting. The police chief of the Atlanta Police Department, Erika Shields, resigned after the incident, saying in a statement that "it is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve."