Ep. 54: What happened to the Rayshard Brooks Bill?

As Atlanta nears its municipal elections, Aja takes us back to an important story that has remained a source of much confusion among constituents and journalists alike: what happened to the Rayshard Brooks Bill.

While national outlets have cited this bill with the claim that Atlanta was actually near defunding the police, that was not the case with this legislation. This story, along with many others, was one that got lost in the shuffle during the uprisings, the pandemic, and the general election news cycle of 2020. The Rayshard Brooks Bill was a key vote for the current city council that should go down in council members’ voting history for the rest of their political career, Aja argues. The bill—for which Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms wrote council members to vote against just moments before they were scheduled to vote—went through many iterations and eventually became the compromise of all compromise. And city government in Atlanta wouldn’t even show up for that.

Tune in for a present-day explainer followed by a spoken version of the original article that was published in July 2020.

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The original report, “What happened to the Rayshard Brooks Bill?”: https://www.mainlinezine.com/op-ed-what-exactly-happened-to-the-rayshard-brooks-bill/

“The Collapse Of Criminal Legal Reform In The Black Mecca” by Tiffany Roberts: https://www.essence.com/news/atlanta-cop-city/

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