Breonna Taylor killing: protests erupt in US after police avoid criminal charges for her death
- Breonna Taylor was shot multiple times by officers who entered her home on a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation
- Taylor’s case and killing of George Floyd in Minnesota became a major touchstone for US race protests. At least 127 were arrested in Louisville
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Angry protesters demanded justice for Breonna Taylor in cities across the United States on after charges were filed against only one policeman involved in the controversial fatal shooting of the 26-year-old black woman, whose name has become a rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The biggest protest was in Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky, where Taylor was killed in March, but demonstrators took to the streets across the nation – from New York and Boston to Washington to Los Angeles.
Detective Brett Hankison, who was fired in June, was charged by a grand jury with three counts of “wanton endangerment” over shots he fired into flats adjoining Taylor’s home.
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Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Louisville following the announcement, and Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Taylor family, condemned the grand jury decision as “outrageous and offensive”.
Police said early on Thursday they had made 127 arrests in Louisville. Some were arrested after damaging businesses and more were detained after jumping on city vehicles being used as barricades. Later, protesters who refused orders to disperse were arrested for curfew and unlawful assembly violations.
Police also said some businesses were looted, including two City Gear stores and a pawnshop.
No further information was released about a suspect accused of shooting two officers while demonstrations were ongoing. Police said one of them underwent surgery and both are expected to survive.
Police in riot gear used flash bangs to clear hundreds of protesters from Jefferson Square Park, where a memorial to Taylor was placed. A state of emergency and a 9pm curfew was declared by the mayor of the city, which has a population of 600,000, with much of downtown closed to traffic.
Taylor, an accident and emergency room technician, was shot dead after three plain-clothes policemen turned up at her door in the middle of the night to execute a search warrant.
Taylor’s boyfriend, who was in bed with her, grabbed a gun and exchanged fire with the officers. He later said he thought they were criminals.
The officers, who had not activated their body cameras as required, shot Taylor multiple times, killing her. A police sergeant was wounded.
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The warrant used to search her home was connected to a suspect who did not live there, and no drugs were found inside.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Hankison had not fired the fatal shots and the two other officers who opened fire had done so in self-defence.
Hankison could face five years in prison for each count if convicted.
“This is a tragedy,” Cameron said. “I know that not everyone will be satisfied with the charges reported today.
“Every person has an idea of what they think justice is.”
Cameron, who is a Republican, is a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who has been tagged by some as his heir apparent. His was also one of 20 names on President Donald Trump’s list to fill a future Supreme Court vacancy.
At a news conference, Trump read a statement from Cameron saying “justice is not often easy”. He praised both Cameron’s handling of the case and the governor’s calling up of the national guard.
Crump expressed disappointment on behalf of the family.
“This is outrageous and offensive to Breonna Taylor’s memory,” he said in a statement. “It’s yet another example of no accountability for the genocide of persons of colour by white police officers.
“If Hankison’s behaviour constituted wanton endangerment of the people in the apartments next to hers, then it should also be considered wanton endangerment of Breonna,” Crump said.
“In fact, it should have been ruled wanton murder.”
The American Civil Liberties Union condemned the grand jury charges as “not accountability and not close to justice”.
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“This is the manifestation of what the millions of people who have taken to the streets to protest police violence already know: modern policing and our criminal legal system are rotten to the core,” the ACLU said.
Cameron, the attorney general, also addressed reports that the police officers had executed a “no-knock” search warrant on Taylor’s home, bursting in without warning.
“They did knock and announce,” he said. “That information was corroborated by another witness.”
The civil settlement reflected the public pressure and emotion surrounding her death, which came about two months before that of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
Floyd’s death triggered protests across the United States against racial injustice and police brutality.
Cameron appealed for calm and Louisville police chief Robert Schroeder said the authorities would not tolerate any “violence or destruction of property.”
“We are prepared to meet any challenge we may face,” Schroeder said, calling for demonstrators to protest “peacefully and lawfully”.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
