More than 1,000 people defied a second night of curfew in Louisville, Kentucky, to protest over the lack of criminal charges in the police killing of Breonna Taylor, with some seeking refuge in a church.
Two officers were shot during clashes in Louisville a day earlier, after authorities announced a grand jury had decided not to charge anyone in connection with the death of Taylor — a 26-year-old black woman shot dead in her apartment by police earlier this year.
“Until we afford black people the basic rights promised by our founders — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and end the rampage of the devil of racism, we will know no peace,” her family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
Photo: AFP
More than a thousand people on Thursday evening protested in the city center, much of which was closed to traffic, with several shops boarded up in anticipation of more violence.
“No way we can be peaceful any longer,” said Michael Pyles, a 29-year-old black man who said that he has been protesting for 120 days and had a 9mm handgun on his hip.
“We’re out here to protect our people and the people who support us,” he said. “We are under attack.”
Grace Pennix, 19, who is also African American, said that she cannot help but place herself in Taylor’s shoes.
“I often be passing by my front door and thinking, dang, the police could be coming at my door and shoot me and kill me just like they did with Breonna,” Pennix said. “It could be me, my friend, cousin, aunt, mom.”
With a 9pm to 6:30am curfew in place through the weekend, about a hundred protesters in breach of the rule late on Thursday sought refuge at the First Unitarian Church.
Heavily armed police surrounded the building and helicopters whirled overhead, but the demonstrators were allowed to leave at about 11pm.
Authorities arrested at least 24 people on charges, including unlawful assembly, failure to disperse and riot in the first degree, police said, although the city appeared to avoid the violence of the previous evening.
Taylor’s death has become a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement and the grand jury decision sent fresh demands for racial justice billowing across the country.
Two police officers were on Wednesday shot and wounded, as thousands flooded the streets of Louisville to protest the grand jury’s decision — both are expected to recover.
Louisville Police Chief Robert Schroeder said that a suspect, Larynzo Johnson, was arrested, and charged with two counts of assault and 14 counts of “wanton endangerment.”
There were 127 arrests made throughout Wednesday night across the city, and at least 16 instances of looting, Schroeder said.
Taylor, an emergency room technician, was shot dead on March 13 after three plainclothes police officers executing a search warrant in the middle of the night burst into the apartment.
Taylor’s boyfriend exchanged fire with the officers, saying that he thought that they were intruders.
More than six months later, a grand jury on Wednesday charged Detective Brett Hankison with three counts of “wanton endangerment” over shots fired into adjoining apartments.
However, neither Hankison, nor the two officers who fired the shots that killed Taylor were charged in direct connection with her death.
US President Donald Trump, who is campaigning for re-election on a “law and order” platform and has stoked fears about violence, wrote on Twitter that he was “praying” for the officers who were shot.
Seething protests have rocked US cities for months, with the movement’s anger fed by a stream of deaths of black people at the hands of police, and exacerbated by badly fractured national politics and inflammatory rhetoric from Trump.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said the two officers who fired the shots that killed Taylor did so in self-defense, and would therefore not be charged.
The city of Louisville last week settled a wrongful death suit with Taylor’s family for US$12 million.
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