#Rayshard Brooks’ ‘girlfriend’ held on $10K bond in Wendy’s fire

The Atlanta woman charged with burning down a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant in the wake of Rayshard Brooks’ police shooting death was ordered held on a $10,000 bond at her first court appearance Wednesday.

Natalie White, who has been identified as Brooks’ girlfriend, will also have to wear an ankle bracelet and must stay off social media if she is released, Fulton County Magistrate Judge Todd Ashley said.

Ashley rejected a request from her lawyer, Drew Findling, that she be released without bail because she has no prior criminal record.

Findling said White’s family “doesn’t have funds to make any bond.”

“Let’s look at the danger to the community,” Ashley said. “So if someone is alleged to have set fire to a building with other people around, whether or not the building was occupied or not occupied, that would represent a danger to firefighters if they were able to get to the scene.”

“That Wendy’s is right next to a gas station,” Ashley said. “That’s a volatile combination.”

The judge said White is accused of “setting fire to the structure by using a torch made of a lighter and some type of can.”

Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Quintin Lewis had asked that White be held on $20,000 bond.

White is charged with first-degree arson.

White, 29, was arrested Tuesday after surrendering to police and charged with the June 13 torching of the Atlanta Wendy’s where Brooks was shot and killed by police the previous day.

Brooks, 27, was questioned by police and scuffled with the cops when they tried to arrest him following a field sobriety test outside the fast-food eatery. He fought with the cops and ran off with one of their Tasers when he was shot twice in the back.

Brooks referred to White as his “girlfriend” during the incident, according to police bodycam footage and her lawyer.

White’s arrest came on the same day as Brooks’ funeral.

In court Wednesday, Findling said prosecutors’ claim that White lit the fire was “just a false narrative.”

“She did not burn the building down,” he said. “She did not set the building on fire.”