Breonna family demands answers
Kin call on AG to bare grand-jury transcripts
Breonna Taylor’s family members on Friday called on Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to release transcripts from the grand jury that did not bring charges against the police officers in the young black woman’s killing.
“I never had faith in Daniel Cameron to begin with. I knew he was too inexperienced to deal with a job of this caliber. I knew he had already been chosen to be on the wrong side of the law,” Taylor’s aunt, Bianca Austin, said as she read a statement on behalf of Taylor’s mom, Tamika Palmer, during a fiery press conference in Louisville.
“I was reassured Wednesday of why I have no faith in the legal system, and the police and the law that are not made to protect us black and brown people,” Austin read during the Friday rally in Jefferson Square Park. “I am an angry black woman.
I am not angry for the reasons that you would like me to be, but angry because our black women keep dying at the hands of police officers, and black men.”
Taylor’s family, surrounded by supporters and attorneys, demanded Cameron release transcripts of the proceedings of the Kentucky grand jury that cleared the current and former Louisville police officers in the March 13 shooting death of Taylor.
“We are standing here today united in solidarity declaring and demanding that he release the transcripts of the grand jury proceeding,” said Benjamin Crump, the attorney representing Taylor’s family.
Speaking of Cameron, Crump asked, “Did he present any evidence on Breonna Taylor’s behalf or did he make a unilateral decision to put his thumb on the scales of justice to justify her killing?
“When you think about the message that is being sent from this grand-jury ruling,” Crump said, “it’s like they charged the police for missing shooting bullets into black bodies, but not charging the police for shooting bullets into black bodies.”
On Wednesday, a Jefferson County grand jury announced it had charged former Louisville police detective Brett Hankison — one of three officers involved in the shooting death of Taylor — with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment for firing his gun into an apartment next to Taylor’s that night.
None of the charges were directly related to Taylor’s death — and the two other cops involved, Officer Myles Cosgrove and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, were not indicted.
Taylor was killed in her apartment during a botched raid seeking drugs that were never found. Her death has been a major rallying cry at Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
Among the supporters alongside Taylor’s family Friday was the father of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man who was shot by a white cop in Wisconsin on Aug. 23.
“We drove eight hours here for this family right here and I love each and every one of you,” Jacob Blake Sr. told the crowd.