Rayshard Brooks’ wife wants officers involved in shooting to go to jail

The wife of Atlanta police shooting victim Rayshard Brooks says she wants the two police officers involved in his death “to be put away,” according to a preview of a new interview.

“I want them to go to jail,” Tomika Miller said in the preview of her comments on “CBS This Morning,” CNN reported. “I want them to deal with the same thing as if it was my husband who killed someone else.

“If it was my husband who shot them, he would be in jail. He would be doing a life sentence. They need to be put away,” she said.

Miller added about her husband, whose death has been ruled a homicide: “Rayshard Brooks is everybody. Just like George (Floyd) is everybody. We are all the people, we are all God’s children.

“We should feel the pain of those who lost their life to senselessness over authority being taken way overboard,” Miller added.

In an interview with ABC News, she called her late husband “a great father, a great husband. He believed in peace, he believed in love,” WSB-TV reported.

“He was a beautiful spirit. He was a fighter. He loved his family. He wanted to be home with us. He wanted to make it home to us,” Miller added.

Before being shot, Brooks asked the officers if they could just let him go home to his family.

“I wish he could have made it. I wish they could have had sympathy or compassion,” Miller told ABC News. “I just feel like they didn’t have to be so aggressive.”

The couple had recently celebrated their daughter’s eighth birthday.

“My daughter knows that her father is not coming home. My son knows that his stepfather is not coming home,” Miller said, according to WSB-TV. “My little children can feel that their father is not answering to ‘daddy, daddy!'”

Miller said she feels like a statistic in the wave of police violence against black men.

“I feel like I’m stuck being a single black parent. I’m being forced to do it by myself. This was not a choice. They took my husband away,” she said. “They destroyed my family. No justice will ever get that back. This is another black family being broken.”

According to an autopsy report released Sunday, Brooks died due to organ damage and blood loss from gunshot wounds to the back at the hands of officer Garrett Rolfe, who was fired after Friday’s shooting.

The 27-year-old was shot during a foot chase following a field sobriety test in the parking lot of an Atlanta Wendy’s restaurant, where he had fallen asleep in the drive-thru line.

Rolfe and a second officer, Devin Brosnan, chased Brooks after he grabbed one of their Tasers and ran off. He was seen in footage appearing to fire the Taser.

The former officer could face a felony murder charge, Fulton County’s top prosecutors said Sunday.
Brosnan has been put on administrative leave.

Brooks’ widow said she understands the frustration and anger expressed by demonstrators calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality, but urged people to fight with peace and dignity.

“I don’t know how many times it can be said that damaging things and destroying property is not going to solve the problem,” Miller told ABC News. “It only makes more aggression, more conflict, more issues, more stereotypes.”