Garrett Rolfe was fired from theAtlanta Police after fatally shootingRayshard Brooks on June 12.- He was given 11 charges, including felony murder and aggravated assault, on Wednesday.
- It has since come to light that Rolfe was involved in the shooting of another Black man in 2015, and was accused by a judge of covering it up.
- In that case, the judge admonished officers for failing to report that they had fired at the suspect, who survived but suffered a collapsed lung.
The ex-Atlanta police officer who has been charged in June 12 shooting of Rayshard Brooks was involved in another shooting of a Black man five years prior, according to The Guardian.
In 2015, Garrett Rolfe and two other officers shot at Jackie Jermaine Harris when he rammed into a police vehicle while driving a stolen truck, according to The Guardian, which obtained court documents pertaining to the incident.
One of the bullets hit Harris, causing him to suffer a collapsed lung. He survived after being taken to the hospital for treatment.
While the police officers admitted that Harris was injured during the incident, they concealed the fact that they had shot at him. The officers did not report that they fired their weapons, The Guardian reported.
Judge Doris L. Downs, who presided over Harris' case, said it was "the wildest case I've seen in my 34 years here," and called for an investigation into their cover-up.
"What the police did was wrong, and they will have to answer for what they did," Downs said, according to The Guardian.
It does not appear that Rolfe was disciplined in connection to this incident, according to his personnel file, which was released by the Atlanta Police on Monday. Read Insider's full report of it here.
The only mention of it on his file is a 2015 incident marked "firearm discharge."
The file also shows that in his seven years on the force, Rolfe received only one use-of-force complaint: a 2017 written reprimand for use-of-force involving a firearm.
He also received a written reprimand in September 2018 and an oral admonishment in 2014, both over vehicle accidents. The document does not provide more details about each incident.
In all, Rolfe's disciplinary file includes 12 incidents, including four citizen complaints.
Nine investigations are marked "exonerated" or "no action taken."
Insider reached out to the Atlanta Police Department for comment Thursday morning, but did not immediately receive a response.
- Read more:
- A 'higher than usual' number of Atlanta police officers call out after former colleague charged with murder over the killing of Rayshard Brooks
- Atlanta officer Garrett Rolfe was fired after fatally shooting Rayshard Brooks. He had recently been trained in de-escalation tactics and cultural awareness.
- Rayshard Brooks was a loving family man who thought the George Floyd protests would move the needle on police brutality. Then he was shot dead by an Atlanta officer.
- Rayshard Brooks' wife says the officers who fatally shot her husband should be jailed