Two officers shot as race protests in US explode again
TWO police officers were shot after protests erupted again across the US following the decision not to charge white officers over the killing of an African-American woman.
Just hours after the Kentucky attorney general tearfully announced the shooting of Breonna Taylor was ‘justified’, hundreds took to the streets of her home city Louisville.
There were sporadic clashes with riot police before the two officers were shot. Businesses were looted and 127 arrests were made in a city seen as one of the US’s most segregated.
The two officers were in a stable condition in hospital and a suspect, Larynzo Johnson, 26, was in custody yesterday.
There were other Black Lives Matter protests in New York, Washington and Chicago. Anger erupted after a grand jury, a group of citizens empowered by law, decided only one of three officers, who had been searching Miss Taylor’s flat as part of a drugs inquiry, should be charged. Brett Hankinson was indicted for the ‘wanton endangerment’ of Miss Taylor’s neighbours after he ‘blindly fired’ ten shots.
Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron choked up as he announced the grand jury decision that the officers had been justified in using force.
‘I understand as a black man, how painful this is,’ he said. ÷President Trump yesterday refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November presidential election. He claims that Democrat rival Joe Biden can only win as a result of rigged postal ballots.