An Atlanta police officer who shot an unarmed black man he suspected of being a burglar has admitted he didn’t know if the victim had committed any crime.
According to a report at the AJC, Officer James R. Burns (who has been fired by the Atlanta Police Department) said during an internal affairs investigation that he shot Deravis Caine Rogers, 22, through the passenger window of Rogers’ car as he drove away from the scene and ignored a command to stop.
Burns, who is now under investigation by the GBI and facing a possible indictment, was responding to a call at the Monroe Place apartments in Midtown on June 22 to assist an off-duty officer who saw a suspicious person thought was breaking into vehicles and who ran from him on foot. The investigation determined there was no evidence of actual car break-ins in the complex or anything linking Rogers to criminal activity that night.
