When Atlanta police officers had a deadly encounter with Rayshard Brooks, it wasn’t the best time for such a thing. The nation was still in the midst of outrage over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and plenty of people were already primed for more outrage.

That night, before anyone could really know anything, the officer who fired the shot was dismissed. The other officer present was reassigned. That was bad.

What was worse, though, was that the district attorney decided to file charges before anyone could even start an investigation.

Now, though, the officer isn’t the only one out of a job.

Paul Howard, who handled the Ray Lewis murder case, Atlanta school cheating scandal and the police killing of Rayshard Brooks during his lengthy tenure, has been ousted as Fulton County’s top prosecutor.

Opponent Fani Willis, who prosecuted cases for years in the county district attorney’s office, outpaced her old boss in June’s Democratic primary, but neither contestant received 50% of the vote, spurring Tuesday’s runoff.

Willis trounced the incumbent Howard on Tuesday by a 3-to-1 margin, according to county election results. With almost 91% of precincts reporting, Willis had more than 43,000 votes, about 73% of the tally, to Howard’s 15,800.

This is in Atlanta, a city that’s more than 50 percent black, and they bounced a long-time incumbent who jumped on the officers involved in the biggest controversy in the city in recent memory.

What went wrong for Howard?

Honestly, I think he caught a fair amount of blowback.

You see, while the media has been presenting the African-American community as united behind groups like Black Lives Matter, we’re starting to see some evidence that the facade is slipping. Black Lives Matter was kicked out of Englewood in Chicago, a majority-black neighborhood. A seemingly pro-Black Lives Matter DA loses a primary in a majority-black city (though Fulton County has a slight majority of white people with 46 percent of the population being white, over 44 percent being black).

Yet this anti-cop sentiment has hamstrung police. They’re afraid to do much of anything for fear of being prosecuted or fired. They simply can’t do their jobs.

When the police can’t do their jobs, people suffer. Generally, though, it’s not the people in elite gated communities that suffer. It’s not the limousine liberals that suffer.

No, it’s the poor folks that make up so much of places like Englewood and Fulton County that suffer. They’re the ones who live in terror of the criminals who may be running rampant in their neighborhoods. They’re the ones who see their children gunned down in gangland crossfire. They’re the ones who pay.

It’s not the middle-class activists who pretend to care about the minorities and the poor who pay that price. Oh no, they go back to their safe neighborhoods or dorm rooms and pretend they’re fighting for the little guy. The problem is, the little guy is begging them to stop.

Now, though, those most impacted seem to be stepping up and telling folks to knock it the hell off.