Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s senior adviser told civil rights activists via Twitter Monday that she expected they would “soon” be able to view video-recordings of what preceded the killing of a woman in police custody last week.
“I understand the concern, clamor for answers,” Melissa Mullinax, Reed’s senior adviser, tweeted to state Sen.Vincent Fort. “Atlanta will do what is right.”
Mullinax was responding to a press conference called by Fort and other activists Monday in front of Atlanta Police headquarters. They are pressuring city and police officials to release the recordings of the shooting of Alexia Christian Thursday while she was in the back of a patrol car.
“We’re not saying it was a good shoot or a bad shoot,” Fort said. “We’re saying regardless we need to see the tape.”
Fort said at this point the question wasn’t so much whether the shooting was justified but whether the Atlanta Police Department is going to be transparent with available video that may have recorded how the shooting happened.
Atlanta police said video-recordings will not be released until the investigation is completed, which Fort called a delaying tactic and an unwise in the national mood regarding similar shootings
“The public has a right to see the video from the dashboard camera and the surveillance cameras immediately,” Fort told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “In the post Ferguson era, if anything has been taught it has been the need for openness and transparency.”
Two officers shot Christian to death Thursday near the Fulton County Courthouse while she was in their patrol car. Christian was detained on suspicion of car theft but managed to slip her handcuffs and opened fire at two officers outside the car with a gun she had concealed, police said.
Officers returned fire, striking Christian, who police say was 26, at least twice, Major Darin Schierbaum said. No officers were injured.
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