The Standard (St. Catharines)

Officials plead for calm amid anger over Breonna Taylor case

- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOUISVILLE, KY. — Authoritie­s pleaded for calm while activists vowed to fight on Thursday in Kentucky’s largest city, where a gunman wounded two police officers during anguished protests following the decision not to charge officers for killing Breonna Taylor.

Outrage over a grand jury’s failure to bring homicide charges against the officers who burst into the Black woman’s apartment six months ago set off a new round of demonstrat­ions Wednesday in several American cities. The state attorney general said the investigat­ion showed officers were acting in self-defence when they responded to gunfire from Taylor’s boyfriend.

Though protests in Louisville began peacefully, officers declared an unlawful assembly after they said fires were set in garbage cans, several vehicles were damaged and stores were broken into. A 26-year-old man was arrested and charged with firing multiple gunshots at police and wounding two officers.

“Violence will only be a source of pain, not a cure for pain,” said Mayor Greg Fischer. “Many see Breonna Taylor’s case as both the tragic death of a young woman and the continuati­on of a long pattern of devaluatio­n and violence that Black women and men face in our country, as they have historical­ly.

“The question obviously is: What do we do with this pain?” the mayor asked. “There is no one answer, no easy answer to that question.”

Activists, celebritie­s and everyday Americans have been calling for charges against police since Taylor was shot multiple times by white officers after one of them was fired upon and wounded while conducting a raid in a narcotics investigat­ion in March.

 ?? NICOLE HESTER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Demonstrat­ors in Detroit march through the city in solidarity with protesters in Louisville, Ky., and Breonna Taylor’s family after the Kentucky grand jury’s decision not to issue charges against any officers for their role in the shooting death of Taylor.
NICOLE HESTER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Demonstrat­ors in Detroit march through the city in solidarity with protesters in Louisville, Ky., and Breonna Taylor’s family after the Kentucky grand jury’s decision not to issue charges against any officers for their role in the shooting death of Taylor.

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