Trump's planned trip to Mount Rushmore draws fire from Native American activists

President Donald Trump’s plans to kick off Independence Day with a showy display at Mount Rushmore are drawing sharp criticism from Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land violently stolen from them and used to pay homage to leaders hostile to native people.
Several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for Trump’s July 3 visit, part of Trump's “comeback” campaign for a nation reeling from sickness, unemployment and, recently, social unrest. The event is slated to include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old stone monument in South Dakota's Black Hills and the first fireworks display at the site since 2009.
But it comes amid a national reckoning over racism and a reconsideration of the symbolism of monuments around the globe. Many Native Americans activists say the Rushmore memorial is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation.
“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective. “It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”

“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today.”
— Nick Tilsen, Oglala Lakota tribe member and political activist

While some activists, like Tilsen, want to see the monument removed altogether and the Black Hills returned to the Lakota, others have called for a share in the economic benefits from the region and the tourists it attracts.
Trump has long shown a fascination with Mount Rushmore. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said in 2018 that he had once told her straight-faced it was his dream to have his face carved into the monument. He later joked at a campaign rally about getting enshrined alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. And while it was Noem, a Republican, who pushed for a return of the fireworks on the eve of Independence Day, Trump joined the effort and committed to visiting South Dakota for the celebration.
The four faces, carved into the mountain with dynamite and drills, are known as the “shrine to democracy.” The presidents were chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum for their leadership during four phases of American development: Washington led the birth of the nation; Jefferson sparked its westward expansion; Lincoln preserved the union and emancipated slaves; Roosevelt championed industrial innovation.
And yet, for many Native American people, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Omaha, Arapaho, Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache, the monument is a desecration to the Black Hills, which they consider sacred. Lakota people know the area as Paha Sapa — “the heart of everything that is.”
As monuments to Confederate and colonial leaders have been removed across U.S. cities, conservatives have expressed concern that Mount Rushmore could be next. Commentator Ben Shapiro this week suggested that the “woke historical revisionist priesthood” wanted to blow up the monument. Noem responded by tweeting, “Not on my watch.”
Tim Giago, a journalist who is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, said he doesn’t see four great American leaders when he looks at the monument, but instead four white men who either made racist remarks or initiated actions that removed Native Americans from their land. Washington and Jefferson both held slaves. Lincoln, though he led the abolition of slavery, also approved the hanging of 38 Dakota men in Minnesota after a violent conflict with white settlers there. Roosevelt is reported to have said, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are..”
The monument has long been a “Rorschach test," said John Taliaferro, author of “Great White Fathers,” a history of the monument. "All sorts of people can go there and see it in different ways.”
The monument often starts conversations on the paradox of American democracy — that a republic that promoted the ideals of freedom, determination and innovation also enslaved people and drove others from their land, he said.
“If we’re having this discussion today about what American democracy is, Mount Rushmore is really serving its purpose because that conversation goes on there,” he said. “Is it fragile? Is it permanent? Is it cracking somewhat?”
The monument was conceived in the 1920s as a tourist draw for the new fad in vacationing called the road trip. South Dakota historian Doane Robinson recruited Borglum, one of the preeminent sculptors at the time, to abandon his work creating the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia, which was to feature Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson.
Borglum was a member of the Klu Klux Klan, according to Mount Rushmore historian and writer Tom Griffith. Borglum joined the Klan to raise money for the Confederate memorial, and Griffith argues his allegiance was more practical than ideological. He left that project and instead spent years in South Dakota completing Mount Rushmore.
Native American activists have long staged protests at the site to raise awareness among the history of the Black Hills, which were taken from them despite treaties with the United States protecting the land. Fifty years ago this summer a group of activists associated with an organization called United Native Americans climbed to the top of the monument and occupied it.
Quanah Brightman, who now runs United Native Americans, said the activism in the 1970s grew out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He hopes a similar movement for Native Americans comes from the Black Lives Matter movement.
“What people find here is the story of America — it's multi-dimensional, it's complex,” Griffith said. “It’s important to understand it was people just trying to do right as best they knew it then.”
The White House had no immediate comment on criticism of the president's planned visit.

As judges back DOJ on Flynn case, Trump decries ‘dirty cops’

President Trump got a much-needed win with a legal ruling Wednesday in the Mike Flynn case, one that echoes well beyond the fate of his former national security adviser.
When a federal appellate panel sided with Bill Barr’s Justice Department in saying the Flynn charges should be tossed, it fueled the president’s narrative that Obama-era officials had unfairly targeted the retired general and that the FBI is out of control.
Indeed, Trump wasted little time before tweeting: “Is James Comey and his band of Dirty Cops going to apologize to General Michael Flynn (and many others) for what they have done to ruin his life? What about Robert Mueller and his Angry Democrat Cronies - Are they going to say, SO SORRY? And what about Obama & Biden?”
The ruling was a rare bright spot after a rough couple of weeks for Trump. He endured a week of negative publicity over his Tulsa rally, culminating in a low turnout. He’s been embroiled in a controversy over testing as the coronavirus just hit its third-highest day in terms of new cases. John Bolton is bashing him all over the airwaves after another DOJ suit failed to block publication of his book.
And Wednesday, a New York Times poll found Joe Biden leading Trump, 50 to 36 percent. This follows a Fox News survey, denounced by the president as fake, that gave Biden a 12-point edge.
No wonder the president is happy that a judicial panel, by a 2-1 vote, scolded trial judge Emmet Sullivan for refusing the administration's request to drop the Flynn case. Barr took enormous heat for moving to dismiss the case, given that Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his post-election conversations with a Russian ambassador.
The decision was written by a Trump appointee, Neomi Rao, who had worked in his White House, and was joined by a Bush judge, with an Obama judge dissenting.
In unusually strong terms, she wrote that the case is “about whether, after the government has explained why a prosecution is no longer in the public interest, the district judge may prolong the prosecution by appointing an amicus, encouraging public participation and probing the government’s motives...Both the Constitution and cases are clear: He may not.”
Sullivan could ask that the case be kicked to the full appeals court, but if not, this ends the Flynn legal saga. He was fired from his White House post after just three weeks on the job.
Even as the attorney general was notching one legal win, he was being assailed at a House hearing for his department’s intervention in the Roger Stone case. DOJ sparked a furor by asking for a lighter sentence than prosecutors had recommended. (Stone wound up with a 40-month term and is to report to prison next week, unless he is pardoned.)
Aaron Zelinsky, who was detailed to the Mueller probe, testified that prosecutors received “heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice,” urging that Stone be given “a break.”
Zelinsky said the acting U.S. attorney in D.C. complied “because he was afraid of the president of the United States,” that career prosecutors were told “we could be fired if we didn’t go along,” and this was all because of “Stone’s relationship to the president.”
I happen to think the original recommendation for a sentence of up to nine years was absurdly harsh, but Barr’s intervention didn’t look good, and looks even less good now. Even though he appears to have won in the Flynn case, it’s extraordinary for an attorney general to push for leniency, late in the game, for two of the president’s political associates.
But sometimes Trump’s critics overreach. Twitter has been slapping warning labels on some presidential tweets, prompting criticism that Jack Dorsey’s company is singling him out for partisan reasons.
The latest warning clearly goes too far. After hoodlums tried to topple an Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Park across from the White House, Trump tweeted: “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!”
Twitter said this violated its rules against “abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.”
This is ridiculous. A president has the right to threaten police action against people who are clearly violating the law. That is hardly in the same category as random yahoos or even organized groups threatening violence that itself would break the law.
Sometimes Trump critics go so far over the line that they wind up helping him instead.

Wray reveals FBI 'looking carefully' at foreign interference in protests following George Floyd's death

The FBI is "looking carefully" at the possibility that foreign actors are influencing the sometimes-violent nationwide protests in the wake of George Floyd's in-custody death, FBI Director Christopher Wray exclusively told Fox News' Bret Baier on Wednesday.
Wray also revealed that "the FBI has over 2,000 active investigations that trace back to the government in China," marking "about a 1,300 percent increase in terms of economic espionage investigations with the Chinese nexus from about a decade ago."
Also in the interview, Wray declined to directly answer whether he was personally "responsible for holding back from Congress" relevant materials concerning key documents, including some relating to former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The Daily Caller has reported, citing a source, that Wray was involved in withholding exculpatory evidence in Flynn's case.
"We have certainly seen in the past a variety of foreign adversaries looking to amplify controversy in this country," Wray said. "And they use state media. They use social media. Some of that is through propaganda, some of that's through disinformation, some of that's through just fake information. And we are looking carefully at the prospect of foreign influence or foreign interference in all of the protests and activities that have occurred over the last few weeks."
Wray's comments came amid a high-level push from the White House and Congress to end the destruction of statues and other monuments across the United States.
In May, former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice bizarrely suggested in a televised interview Sunday that the Russians could be behind the violent nationwide demonstrations, although she offered no evidence and admitted she's "not reading the intelligence these days."
President Trump on Wednesday vowed to protect statues as some activists are calling for the toppling of monuments to former presidents, controversial historical figures and even Jesus Christ -- after initially just targeting those of Confederate figures. Trump, who earlier in the day promised to sign an executive order by the end of the week to protect public statues and federal monuments, said that any continuation of the toppling of monuments “is not going to happen.”
And, Indiana GOP Rep. Jim Banks said will be introducing legislation that would make desecrating memorials to "previous U.S. presidents or a Founding Father" a federal offence punishable up to 10 years in prison. The “Defending America’s Culture and Heritage Act” (DAHCA), would amend the Veterans’ Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act of 2003 to "include statues of former U.S. presidents and all those individuals who signed the Declaration of Independence."
"Look, equal justice is essential, but violence and destruction of federal property is not the way to get there," Wray said. "And if there are appropriate bases for federal investigations, we'll pursue them."
China, Wray told Baier, is clearly engaged in a wide relay of malign activities -- including "pursuing a campaign of intellectual property theft economic espionage, cyber-intrusions that target businesses -- big and small -- all across the country and our academic research institutions."
The country's communist leaders employ "what we sometimes call non-traditional collectors which can be businessmen, high-level scientists, high-level academics – people like that."
China additionally "have an interest in influencing our political thought – our policies – to try and shift them in a more friendly, pro-China, pro-Chinese Communist party direction;  and so sometimes that gets wrapped up in election issues," Wray added.

With the White House and the Washington Monument in the background, a National Park Service worker cleans a statue of President Andrew Jackson, Thursday, June 11, 2020, near the White House in Washington, after protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who was in police custody in Minneapolis. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

As Wray spoke to Baier, a federal appeals court ordered the case against former Trump administration national security advisor Michael Flynn dismissed, despite a judge's unilateral efforts to keep the case alive.
The DOJ had sought to drop the case after explosive internal FBI documents unsealed in April showed that top bureau officials discussed their motivations for interviewing Flynn in the White House in January 2017 -- and openly questioned if their "goal" was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."
The handwritten notes -- written by the FBI's former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap -- further suggested that agents planned in the alternative to get Flynn "to admit to breaking the Logan Act" when he spoke to then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.
The Logan Act is an obscure statute that has never been used in a criminal prosecution; enacted in 1799 in an era before telephones, it was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad.
On Wednesday, Flynn’s lawyers said newly uncovered notes from former FBI official Peter Strzok indicate that then-Vice President Joe Biden was involved in the decision to pursue the Logan Act case against Flynn.
The notes state: “VP: ‘Logan Act,’ P: These are unusual times. VP: I’ve been on intel committee for ten years and I never. P: Make sure you look over things and have the right people on it. P: Is there anything I shouldn’t be telling the transition team? D: Flynn-> Kislyak calls but appear legit.” (The transcription assumes that in Strzok's shorthand, "D" represents Director Comey, "VP" represents Vice President Biden, and "P" represents President Obama.)
Pressed by Baier as to why all these exculpatory notes took so long to come out, Wray acknowledged the legitimacy of the concerns.
"Decisions about producing documents in a criminal prosecution are typically handled by the prosecutors," Wray said. "I will say that, of course, the Flynn investigation, which took place before I started and then by the time I started was in the hands of the Special Counsel’s Office, is something that has, in my view, raised serious concerns and questions. Which is why I ordered an after-action review by our inspection division, to take a look at whether or not the FBI’s policies and procedures need to be changed and if there are any current employees left who may bear any responsibility for this conduct."
Baier asked directly: "Congress says they’ve had a tough time getting documents and things from you. Senator Grassley in particular about the Michael Flynn calls. Were you responsible for holding back from Congress some of that stuff?"
Wray didn't respond directly, however.
"I think we’ve tried very, very hard to be transparent and cooperative with all the relevant congressional committees," Wray said. "We produced all sorts of information and tried to really lean forward."
Wray added that the agency is fully cooperating with U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe into surveillance abuses against Trump officials.
"We’ve cooperated fully with the Durham investigation," Wray said. "In fact, we even have -- a lot of people don’t know this, we actually have agents assigned working on the Durham investigation. So we’re very much lashed up with that."
At the same time, Wray told Baier he has never once met with Trump one-on-one. Comey's one-on-one meetings with the president had attacted scrutiny, and allegations of impropriety by Comey.
Fox News' Bret Baier contributed to this report.

Numerous Seattle businesses – including an auto repair shop, a tattoo parlor and a property management company – sued the city Wednesday, alleging city officials were complicit in allowing an “occupied protest” that has made them feel unsafe in their neighborhood, according to reports.
Workers and residents also joined the lawsuit over CHOP, the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, which drew scorn from President Trump and other critics who accused Mayor Jenny Durkan, the city’s police chief and other city leaders of turning the area over to “anarchists.”
Organizers of CHOP -- part of the widespread rioting and demonstrations that followed the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis -- said they sought to establish a “police-free” area in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district.
Since the occupation began June 8, the area has seen shootings, vandalism and other crimes.
Last Sunday a 17-year-old victim was shot in an arm and last Saturday a 19-year-old man was shot dead and another person was critically wounded, Q13 FOX of Seattle reported. In both cases, hostile crowds slowed police efforts to reach the crime scenes, the station’s report said.
“(T)his lawsuit is about the constitutional and other legal rights of plaintiffs – businesses, employees and residents in and around CHOP – which have been overrun by the city of Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services and inaccessible to the public at large,” the lawsuit says, Q13 FOX reported.
One local business owner, Joey Rodolfo of Buki clothing, told “Fox & Friends” this week that he plans to move out of state because of what he described as Seattle’s lack of governmental leadership.
"Since we have no leadership and we have a city council that's so socialist, there really is very, very little support for businesses,” Rodolfo said. “As far as the city reaching out to small businesses like ourselves, or any business, there has been zero.”
The Seattle city attorney’s office told local media that it hadn’t yet had an opportunity to review the lawsuit but planned to respond after reviewing it.
The plaintiffs allege that city leaders provided the demonstrators with barriers, public restrooms and medical supplies – in effect supporting the occupation of the neighborhood and hindering the efforts of local businesspeople, employees and residents to reach their buildings, receive deliveries and provide services, the Seattle Times reported.
The CHOP zone has also worsened conditions for elderly and disabled people in the area, the lawsuit asserts, according to the newspaper.
“The result of the City’s actions has been lawlessness,” Calfo Eakes LLP, the law firm representing the plaintiffs, told the Times in a statement. “There is no public safety presence. Police officers will not enter the area unless it is a life-or-death situation, and even in those situations, the response is delayed and muted, if it comes at all.”

“The result of the City’s actions has been lawlessness.”
— Calfo Eakes LLP, law firm representing plaintiffs suing Seattle

Facing mounting pressure, Durkan on Monday said the city would begin dismantling the blocks-long occupied area – claiming the crimes and other violence in the zone were distracting from the message that peaceful protesters tried to communicate when they established the occupation, Q13 FOX reported.
“The cumulative impacts of the gatherings and protests and the nighttime atmosphere and violence has led to increasingly difficult circumstances for our businesses and residents,” Durkan said. “The impacts have increased and the safety has decreased.”
Soon after the occupation began, President Trump told Fox News’ Harris Faulkner that he thought Durkan and Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee had surrendered control of the situation.
“I will tell you, if they don’t straighten that situation out, we're going to straighten it out,” Trump said June 11, in an interview that aired on “Outnumbered Overtime” in its entirety the next day.
In a social media message posted Wednesday, addressed to “Comrades in the struggle,” CHOP organizers declared their “project” concluded, and urged demonstrators to leave by Wednesday night.

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Reporter describes assault by Washington DC 'BHAZ' protesters: 'I was singled out'

Daily Caller media reporter Shelby Talcott joined "The Ingraham Angle" Tuesday to describe her harrowing experience reporting on the short-lived Black House Autonomous Zone (BHAZ) enclave in Washington D.C. the previous night.
"For some reason, I was singled out," Talcott told host Laura Ingraham. "I was actually with a few of my co-workers who were sort of around me making sure that the situation wasn't going to escalate; which it ultimately did."
Ingraham played a short video clip of Talcott being accosted by black-clad protesters, including one who demanded she stop filming because she was pointing her camera at people's faces in violation
Talcott explained that the protesters may have been especially angry because their attempt to take down a statue in Lafayette Square of Andrew Jackson had been foiled by D.C. police.
"[P]olice came and pushed them back," she said. "They were also trying to develop an autonomous zone which didn't work very well -- so tensions were high."
Protesters vandalized St. John's Church with the letters "BHAZ", and attempted to use barricades and other fencing to create an "autonomous zone" in the style of Seattle's "CHOP" area.
"As the night went on there, were a bunch of protesters in shields at the front of the line as you see in the video," Talcott told Ingraham. "I went to film that and they clearly didn't want to be filmed, whatever they were going to do."
"They decided I was an undercover cop," she added. "I even, at times, showed some of them my bio and my stories to show them I'm clearly not. They were still running with this narrative and they wanted me out of the area."
Despite the hostile reception, Talcott said a few protesters appeared to believe her assertion that she was a reporter.
Early Tuesday, Talcott wrote on Twitter that she had beeb pushed toward a line of actual police officers who briefly detained her for her own safety.
"I was handcuffed but not arrested, and they released me in a safe area," she wrote.
Ingraham praised Talcott for her "gutsy" decision to engage with the unpredictable situation.

Protesters attack Wisconsin state senator in chaotic night at capitol: report

A Democrat state senator from Milwaukee was pummeled by a group of protesters at the Wisconsin State Capitol late Tuesday during a violent clash that included two statues being toppled, a report said.

Sen. Tim Carpenter told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he was beaten after taking a photo of some of the protesters.
“I don’t know what happened,” he told the paper. “All I did was stop and take a picture and the next thing I’m getting five-six punches, getting kicked in the head.”
A reporter from the paper posted an image of Carpenter while he kneeled by his car.
Social media posts from the scene early Wednesday indicated that police in riot gear were warning protesters to leave the area after reports that some were trying to break the windows of the capitol building.
NBC 15 reported that protesters toppled the two statues. The paper reported that one of the statues was of Col. Christian Heg, who fought and died during the Civil War on the Union side.
Rich Lowery, the editor of the National Review, tweeted, "It’s now open season on abolitionists who recruited troops for the Union army, ably led them, and died courageously on the battlefield."

The unrest on Tuesday started after a black man was arrested at a restaurant after police said he brought a bat and a megaphone into the establishment, the report said.

24-year-old Republican beats Trump-backed candidate in North Carolina primary race for Meadows seat

Madison Cawthorn, a 24-year-old real estate investment CEO, won a Republican primary runoff election Tuesday in western North Carolina in the race to fill the congressional seat of former Rep. Mark Meadows, who stepped down in March to become President Trump’s chief of staff.
And in winning the runoff contest, Cawthorn upset Lynda Bennett, who was endorsed earlier this month by the president.
Cawthorn's win – which was called by the AP less than two hours after the polls closed -- marks a rare victory over a candidate backed by Trump.
Bennet had made the president’s endorsement her pinned tweet on Twitter.
And she took to Twitter Tuesday morning to urge people in the district to “Get out and vote today for Pro-Trump conservative Lynda Bennett. Lynda is the only candidate endorsed by President Trump, and she's the only candidate with a proven record of business experience to help carry out the President's agenda.”
Bennett, a Haywood County real estate company owner, was also endorsed by Meadows – the former House Freedom Caucus chair who announced in December that he wouldn’t run for a fifth two-year term representing North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District – as well as by conservative Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
But Cawthorn emphasized that he’s a strong Trump supporter and stressed that he wouldn’t be beholden to anyone in the nation’s capital if won election to Congress. He won the backing of a slate of local officials and also received some support from a super PAC that backs candidates allied with Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Cawthorn finished second to Bennett in a whopping 12-candidate GOP primary in early March. The May runoff was delayed until June due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Cawthorn – who won’t reach the constitutionally-mandated age of 25 to serve in the House until August – will face Democrat Moe Davis, a former military prosecutor, in November.

Armed Atlanta protesters near Rayshard Brooks shooting site say cops not allowed there

At least three men brandishing long guns -- seen Tuesday night near the Wendy's restaurant in Atlanta where Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot during his arrest earlier this month -- told Fox News that police were no longer allowed in the area.

One man, who said he was holding a 12-gauge shotgun, told reporter Steve Harrigan he was armed because there were no longer police officers to protect them.
Another man said he lost confidence that the city's police were committed to their pledge to “serve and protect.”
“The police aren’t allowed here because they’re not here to protect us,” the man with the shotgun said.
Harrigan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he observed a roadblock with no police in sight. The Atlanta Police Department told Fox News in a statement early Wednesday, "APD is monitoring the situation and plans to coordinate with community leaders and the Wendy’s property owner to address security issues and help preserve peace for this community as soon as possible."
Previously, the most recent tweet from the department was posted a few days ago, assuring residents that officers were still capable of responding to 911 calls. That tweet followed reports that some Atlanta police officers had been calling out sick, in what the city's interim police chief said was an indication that they "may feel abandoned" by the city's leadership.

Brooks' killing on June 12 set off violent protests in a city that was still reeling from protests over the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. Protesters in Atlanta said the Brooks killing was yet another example of police brutality directed at the black community. In the aftermath of Brooks’ death, the Atlanta police chief resigned, and protesters burned the Wendy’s restaurant.
One Atlanta police officer was fired, arrested and charged with murder in connection with the death, while another officer was reassigned, pending results of an investigation.
Meanwhile, Atlanta authorities arrested arson suspect Natalie White, 29, on Tuesday afternoon for allegedly burning down the fast-food restaurant.
The Fulton County Sheriff's Office announced the arrest on Twitter shortly after Brooks' funeral service at the city’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.
"The Fulton County Sheriff's Office Fugitive Unit just apprehended Wendy's arson suspect Natalie White moments ago," the office said. "White is being booked into the Fulton County Jail right now. This case is being investigated by @ATLFireRescue Arson Unit. @FGTV @FultonInfo."
The deaths of Floyd and Brooks have led to a groundswell of protests against racial inequality, a movement to take down Confederate statues and other symbols, and demands for the dismantling of police departments or the shifting of their funding toward social services.
Police body-camera video showed Brooks, 27, and officers having a calm and cooperative conversation for more than 40 minutes. A struggle erupted when police tried to handcuff Brooks for being intoxicated behind the wheel of his car at a Wendy’s drive-thru. Brooks grabbed a stun gun from one of the officers and fired it in their direction as he tried to flee.

The lawyer for the police officer who fired the deadly shot told Fox News last week that several claims from Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. were “not true.”
Lance LoRusso, said when his client, Garrett Rolfe, 26, fired his weapon, Brooks was not “running away." He said Brooks “turned and offered extreme violence toward a uniformed law enforcement officer. If he was able to deploy the stun gun, it would incapacitate Officer [Garrett] Rolfe through his body armor, and at that point, if he decided to disarm another officer, he would be in possession of a firearm."
The armed protesters who spoke to Fox News said they agreed with the city’s top prosecutor that the officers involved in the shooting could have resolved the interaction peacefully and the blame should be placed squarely on them.
The idea of a “police-free” zone seems to be an emerging demand among protesters. The first major aggression displayed toward police in wake of Floyd’s death was when protesters set fire to the Minneapolis police station that housed the officers involved in the deadly arrest.
Since then, calls to defund and disband entire police departments have gained traction in some Democrat circles. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., the influential lawmaker, likened police in the city to a cancer that has to be extricated.
Protesters in Seattle formed what they called CHOP — “Capitol Hill Organized Protest” — which they considered a “police-free” area in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood. City officials there have been criticized for being too lenient with the protesters, but two recent shootings — including one that resulted in a fatality — prompted Mayor Jenny Durkan to announce that an effort was underway to end the protest.
Harrigan asked the armed Atlanta men what would happen if a police officer told them to drop their weapon. One insisted that they were peaceful.

“It’s my legal right to bear arms," said the other, referring to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. "And at no point will I allow my right to be disturbed.”
Fox News' Steve Harrigan, Nick Givas and the Associated Press contributed to this report

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