By Rich McKay
ATLANTA (Reuters) – Mourners are expected to fill the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church on Tuesday afternoon for the funeral of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who was shot and killed by police outside an Atlanta fast-food restaurant almost two weeks ago.
While Brooks will be remembered at an invitation-only service, the funeral will be broadcast on the church’s internet site, starting about 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT).
Hundreds of mourners filed past his gold-colored casket on Monday at a public viewing at the church steeped in the Black struggle for civil rights. Ebenezer Baptist was where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached until his assassination in 1968.
Most mourners on Monday never met Brooks, a 27-year-old father of three, but like Janice Danvers, 67, of Portsmouth, Virginia, wanted to attend Brooks’ viewing.
“I think we should all see this,” Danvers told Reuters. “Then go out protesting. People need to listen. This is one too many (shootings).”
Brooks’ death after being shot twice in the back, with one round piercing his heart, heightened tensions over police brutality and racism in U.S. policing that have raged since the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis in late May.
A prosecutor said Brooks appeared to be running away and was not a threat after running off with a Taser stun gun he had taken from one of the officers during an arrest at Wendy’s restaurant in south Atlanta on June 12. Video shows Brooks appeared to fire the Taser in the direction of the officers.
The Atlanta police officer who shot Brooks, Garrett Rolfe, 27, was fired and charged with murder. A second officer, Devin Brosnan, 26, was placed on administrative duty and charged with aggravated assault. The city’s police chief resigned.
The Wendy’s restaurant was burned down after the killing.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Peter Cooney)
