On Sun., July 25, at 1:01 a.m. EST, an officer from the Atlanta police department shot and killed 38-year-old Gabriel Sam Parker, who is referred to by his family as “Sam.” Mainline reporter Nolan Huber-Rhoades brings us an official audio report detailing and chronicling the events after attending a vigil hosted by Parker’s family.
Multiple eyewitnesses reported to The Mainline that on that night, they saw an Atlanta police officer exit his vehicle, “took a knee with a rifle and shot Sam in the back as he was trying to de-escalate the situation.” Parker was attending a neighborhood reunion party and was helping to de-escalate a fight. A representative of Parker’s family have chosen to speak with Mainline to report this story while combating local mainstream news narratives.
This report contains audio from Atlanta police scanners which have been included here to enhance Mainline’s reporting and ability to tell this story. Nolan reports the incident through the lens of abolition, examining the systemic conditions that create the violent realities between Black communities and police.
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Follow Nolan Huber-Rhoades on Instagram at @nolanhuberrhoades and Twitter at @nhuberrhoades
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Additional resources:
CBS46 original report: https://www.cbs46.com/news/update-man-killed-in-block-party-shootout-in-northwest-atlanta-identified/article_8b4ce348-ed3f-11eb-97fb-4746118d94d3.html
APEX Team Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) https://www.atlantapd.org/home/showdocument?id=3395
Mariame Kaba’s essay about why she dreads summer because, as she explains, Black people being outside means more interactions with police and more deaths at the hands of police: https://thenewinquiry.com/summer-heat/
Video on the ground after the shooting:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CRvXCuTAl8C/?utm_medium=copy_link
