ATLANTA police fired officer Garrett Rolfe today for shooting dead Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old black man, on Friday night as anti-racist protests continued to surge across the US and the world.

The Georgia city’s Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she had accepted the resignation of police chief Erika Shields.

“I do not believe this was a justified use of deadly force,” she said.

Protesters rallied outside the Wendy’s drive-thru restaurant outside of which Mr Brooks was killed.

Police were called as he had fallen asleep in his car, blocking the entrance, and he was shot during a scuffle after being tasered.

Hundreds marched in Palmdale, California, calling for an investigation into the death of a man who was found hanging from a tree outside the city hall, though authorities say they think that this was a suicide.

Demonstrators in New Orleans tore down a bust of slave owner John McDonough and rolled it into the Mississippi River.

Protesters hailed a victory as Minneapolis, the city whose police killed George Floyd, igniting what has become a global protest movement against racism, voted on Friday night to abolish the police department and replace it with “a new model of public safety.”

The vote was to remove part of the city charter the requirement that Minneapolis retain a police department and a minimum number of officers.

Any such change would need to be approved in a public vote.

Councillor Jeremiah Ellison said authorities expected the process of seeking feedback on new public safety arrangements to take at least a year, while Mayor Jacob Frey is opposed to the proposal.

US President Donald Trump also agreed to move the date of a planned rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from next Friday to Saturday to avoid clashing with June 19, celebrated as “Juneteenth” in the US because on June 19 1865 the order was given to free all slaves in Texas, the last state to implement president Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Declaration after losing the civil war. 

The location of the rally has also been slammed as evoking the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, when white mobs set on the city’s black residents and killed scores, though when trying to attack the president’s choice Democrat leader Joe Biden flopped by getting the location wrong, railing at Trump for planning a rally in Arizona.

Rallies took place around the world in solidarity with US protesters.

Around 20,000 joined a “ribbon against racism” five-and-a-half mile human chain linked by coloured ribbons in Berlin.

Demos took place in Japan, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia among other countries.