Rayshard Brooks remembered as a simple man who loved his family

ATLANTA – Mourners gathered for the funeral of Rayshard Brooks on Tuesday in Ebenezer Baptist Church, a historic Atlanta sanctuary that rose after the Civil War and Reconstruction, survived decades of Jim Crow laws, and for years served as a spiritual home for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The years weighed heavily as family and friends clad in white and wearing masks filed into the red brick church under cloudy skies, for yet another black man killed, with a white police officer accused of murder.

"This did not have to happen to Rayshard," the Rev. Bernice King, a daughter of King and the CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, said of Brooks, who was fatally shot June 12. King called the moment "all too familiar."

She was 5 when her father was assassinated. She wore a lacy white dress to his funeral in the same church in 1968. Fifty-two years later, she stood in the pulpit and saw Brooks' three daughters, also in white dresses.

"There's so many ways that Friday, June 12, could have ended, and a police killing did not have to be one of them. And yet here we are again," she said.

The Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist, said Brooks "is the latest high-profile casualty in the struggle for justice and a battle for the soul of America."

"This is about him, but it is much bigger than him," Warnock said.

Brooks, a 27-year-old married father of four, was shot and killed by a police officer who said he was investigating a report of an intoxicated man sleeping in a car at a Wendy's drive-thru in Atlanta.

Brooks' death led to the resignation of Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields and inflamed ongoing nationwide protests over police violence against black people. Brooks died a little more than two weeks after George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Former Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe has been charged with murder in Brooks' death, and he remained in custody Tuesday. Devin Brosnan, the other officer at the scene, has been charged with aggravated assault and other crimes. Lawyers for Rolfe and Brosnan have defended their clients and said the shooting was justified in a volatile situation.

At the funeral, mourners said Brooks did not deserve to die, and his death has drawn national attention. Tyler Perry paid for the service, and the 200 guests – limited because of the coronavirus — included Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and the rapper and actor T.I. About 60 people outside watched the service on a large screen.

Inside, mourners acknowledged Brooks' criminal history – the pastor said he was on probation — and suggested that his fear of returning to jail was one reason he fled the police that night. They said the death of Brooks and other black men and women is a plague in a nation that once enslaved black people and still discriminates against them in ways that can turn deadly.

Brooks's cousin Jymaco Brooks said his cousin was a simple man with simple dreams who loved his family and wanted to raise his children. "All he wanted to do was smile, crack jokes, dance a little bit," Brooks's cousin said.