Atlanta cop Devin Brosnan suffered concussion during Rayshard Brooks altercation: lawyer
Atlanta police officer Devin Brosnan suffered a concussion and other injuries during the altercation that led to the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, the cop’s attorney said in a televised interview.
“Devin ends up taking out his Taser and yelling at him to ‘stop fighting, stop fighting,’” Don Samuel told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday night. “Mr. Brooks grabbed the Taser from him and shoots … Devin gets shot with the Taser.”
The lawyer added: “He then falls over and lands on his head on the pavement and gets a concussion.”
Samuel, who called Brosnan’s actions “exemplary,” claimed prosecutors didn’t bother looking at the officer’s medical records.
He also rejected the aggravated assault charge leveled against his client, who prosecutors said stood on Brooks’ shoulder after he was shot.
Samuel said the concussed Brosnan didn’t even realize Brooks had been shot when he “put his foot on the arm to make sure he didn’t have access to a weapon” as he lay on the ground.
“It’s not an assault. It’s a man suffering from a concussion,” he added.
Meanwhile, another attorney for Brosnan said there is no agreement for the officer to testify — contradicting what Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said at a press conference announcing charges Wednesday.
The DA said Brosnan had agreed to testify against former cop Garrett Rolfe, who is charged with 11 counts including felony murder.
“To be clear, there is no agreement that our client will testify at any hearing,” Amanda Clark Palmer said on CNN.
When asked if her client might cop to a plea to work as a state’s witness, Palmer said: “In my view, he doesn’t need a deal; he shouldn’t have been charged with a crime in the first place.”
She added: “He’s not a state’s witness, he’s a witness. He will tell the truth about what he saw and what happened. And he will do so if he gets a subpoena.”
Palmer told USA Today in an email that Brosnan cooperated with the DA’s office when he was interviewed Tuesday, “just like he will cooperate with the (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) or any agency conducting an investigation into Mr. Brooks’ death.”
She also called the DA’s decision to charge Brosnan “irrational.”