Atlanta Police Skip Work In Possible Protest After Officer Charged In Rayshard Brooks Shooting

There has been an unusual spike in the number of Atlanta Police Department (APD) officers reporting sick Wednesday evening after a colleague was formally charged for murdering Rayshard Brooks.

There were reports some officers in three of Atlanta's six zones refused to respond to calls. Rumors of protests by the cops are doing the rounds. APD, however, hasn't confirmed rumors that any sort of mass protest action by police -- either a strike or a work slowdown -- is afoot.

It did, however, admit the number of officers calling in sick for the late or evening shift was unusual.

"The department is experiencing a higher than usual number of call outs with the incoming shift," tweeted the APD on Wednesday. "We have enough resources to maintain operations & remain able to respond to incidents."

Mayor Keisha Bottoms moved quickly to squelch mounting fears that Atlanta cops were planning protests of their own. She's a target of their discontent for having fired six officers accused of violently and unnecessarily assaulting two black students on the evening of May 31. Then came the Brooks shooting. Bottoms said she thinks morale among Atlanta cops is down tenfold due to these demoralizing incidents.

The shooting of Brooks on June 12 by police officer Garrett Rolfe and his indictment Wednesday (June 17) were apparently the last straw for the cops. Rolfe shot Brooks following a complaint about a man asleep in a car blocking the drive-thru at a Wendy's restaurant. The fleeing Brooks was shot twice in the back after a fistfight with two officers who wanted to handcuff him.

Rolfe was charged with felony murder and 10 other charges on Wednesday by Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard. He also faces five counts of aggravated assault, four counts of violation of oath of office and one count of criminal damage to property.

Devin Brosnan, the other officer involved in the Brooks' shooting, faces an aggravated assault charge for standing on Brooks in the parking lot. He also faces two counts of violation of oath of office. Brosnan's lawyers explained their client didn't stand on Brooks but instead placed his foot on the latter's right shoulder to ascertain he was unarmed.

"There's a lot happening in our cities and our police officers are receiving the brunt of it, quite frankly," said Bottoms to CNN's Chris Cuomo.

She said the city committed to the officers a pay raise of up to 30% announced in October 2019, and added the officers were expected to "keep their commitment to our communities."

"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."