Secoriea Turner was fatally shot Saturday night in a car with her mother and a friend in Atlanta after the group tried to pull into a parking lot near Rayshard Brooks‘ memorial, Yahoo News reports.
What We Know:
- The location of the incident had been barricaded after Rayshard Brooks was killed on June 12 at a Wendy’s parking lot south of downtown Atlanta. His death was followed by weeks of protests in the neighborhood against racial injustice and police brutality.
- Interim Police Chief Rodney Bryant said the driver was confronted by a group of armed people who had blocked the entrance to the parking lot, which was less than a half-mile from the Wendy’s. Bryant said that at some point, someone “opened fire, striking the car multiple times”.
- Secoriea Turner was pronounced dead at the hospital later that night.
- No suspects were able to be identified and it is still unclear whether the shooting was related to the ongoing protests in the area, where Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told protesters Sunday to clear out. “You shot and killed a baby,” she said at a news conference. “Enough is enough.”
- Mayor Bottoms added that the majority of protests were peaceful but there were occasional violent incidents. One of these included the alleged attempted firebombing of a state Public Safety Department building early Sunday.
- “We understand the frustration of Rayshard Brooks,” the girl’s mother said at the news conference. “We ain’t got nothing to do with that. [We’re] innocent. We didn’t mean no harm. My baby didn’t mean no harm.”
Rayshard Brooks was shot in the back twice in June after taking a stun gun from police. Garrett Rolfe, the former Atlanta officer who shot Brooks, was charged with felony murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes.
