Maraaz 
Atlanta police chief Erika Shields’s resignation comes at a time of heightened tension over police brutality and calls for reforms across the US following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Atlanta’s police chief resigned on Saturday, the city’s mayor said, as protesters took to the streets hours after the fatal shooting by police of a black man who had fallen asleep in his car at a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant drive-thru line.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she accepted the resignation of police chief Erika Shields after the killing of Rayshard Brooks, 27, of Atlanta. Dozens of protesters gathered by late afternoon around the spot south of downtown where the man was shot and killed.
“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer,” Bottoms said at a news conference.
Atlanta’s police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Authorities have not yet released the names of the two officers involved in the shooting, both of whom were white.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said it was investigating the incident. Police said Brooks resisted arrest after failing a field sobriety test.
Protests began Saturday afternoon and were expected to continue through the day.
Racial equality protests
The killing of Brooks came after weeks of intense racial equality protests across the United States following the death of George Floyd, a black man killed in Minneapolis police custody when an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
The Georgia investigators said video taken by an eyewitness was aiding their probe.
GBI director Vic Reynolds said during a news conference that video captured by cameras inside the Wendy’s restaurant appeared to show that Brooks had one of the officer’s Tasers in his hand when he fled.
“At that point, the Atlanta officer reaches down and retrieves his weapon from his holster, discharges it, strikes Mr Brooks there on the parking lot and he goes down,” Reynolds said.
In the eyewitness video, Brooks is first seen on the ground outside his car, struggling with two officers.
He appears to grab for the Taser of one officer, who was using the device on Brooks’ leg. After a few seconds, Brooks breaks free and begins to run. One officer then uses a Taser on him. The pair then run out of the frame of the video.
Gunshots are heard along with someone yelling “I got him!” The video then shows Brooks apparently lifeless on the ground.
Brooks died after being taken to an Atlanta hospital.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr, said in an emailed statement that his office “has already launched an intense, independent investigation of the incident” while it awaits the findings of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Protesters take to Atlanta’s streets
A crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the restaurant where Brooks was shot. Gerald Griggs, an attorney and a vice president of Atlanta’s NAACP chapter, estimated there were 150 people protesting at the scene as he walked with them Saturday afternoon.
“The people are upset,” Griggs said. “They want to know why their dear brother Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed when he was merely asleep on the passenger side and not doing anything.”
Even though Brooks struggled with officers, Griggs said, “they could have used nonlethal force to take him down.”
