Erika Shields deserved better, so did Atlanta!

This never should have happened! Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields stepped down on Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the fatal police shooting of a Black man outside a Wendy’s. Erika Shields is a good lady and was a good Chief of Police. She is the victim of “terrible officers doing terrible things on a given shift. She should have been given more time to ferret out the terrible officers employed long before she became Chief. Deputy Chief Rodney Bryant will have a difficult time doing that.

“One terrible lesson of George Floyd’s death is that we don’t have mechanisms to stop terrible officers from doing terrible things on a given shift.”

Philip Goff — a founder and the chief executive of the Center for Policing Equity, at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where he is also the Franklin A. Thomas Professor in Policing Equity

James Clyburn, House majority whip — “This did not call for lethal force. And I don’t know what’s in the culture that would make this guy do that. It has got to be the culture. It’s got to be the system.”

Nancy La Vigne, vice president of justice policy at the Urban Institute, describes a “warrior mentality” imbued in police training and recruitment. She said this reputation attracts a subset of individuals who may not always be the best fit to deal…