Atlanta Police Chief Ericka Shields voluntarily stepped down from her post on Saturday following a deadly police shooting of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks outside of a local Wendy's drive-thru, The Hill reports.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Shields' withdrawal from the department during a press conference on Saturday, while also calling for the "immediate termination" of the officer who shot Brooks.
"Chief Ericka Shields has been a solid member of APD for over two decades and has a deep and abiding love for the people of Atlanta," Bottoms said.
"And because of her desire that Atlanta should be a meaningful model of what reform should look like across this country, Chief Shields has offered to immediately step aside as police chief so that the city may move forward with urgency in rebuilding the trust so desperately needed throughout our communities," she continued.
The incident occurred when Atlanta Police Department (ADP) officers were dispatched to a Wendy's in the city Friday evening around 10:30 p.m. in response to complaints that Brooks was asleep in the drive-thru of the restaurant.
Police said they attempted to take Brooks into custody following a failed sobriety test, which led to a struggle between Brooks and the other officers.
Brooks, while allegedly resisting, grabbed an officer's Taser and ran off with it.
After a achieving a certain distance, footage captured of the scene from the Wendy's parking lot shows Brooks turning around and appears to point the stun gun at police. Officers then shot him.
Bottoms said in her remarks Saturday that she did not “believe that this was a justified use of deadly force."
An ambulance transferred Brooks to a local hospital, and he later died after surgery.
One officer was treated for an injury sustained during the exchange and was later discharged from the hospital.
Crowds of people on Saturday showed up at the scene of the incident to peacefully protest the shooting.
Other protests ensued across the city on Saturday in opposition to police brutality and in support of Black Lives Matter.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced Saturday that the Atlanta Police Department (APD) requested the bureau to investigate the shooting of Brooks.