Family demands release of evidence in Breonna Taylor’s case

LOUISVILLE, Ky.— Breonna Taylor’s family demanded Friday that Kentucky authorities release all body camera footage, police files and the transcripts of the grand jury hearings that led to no charges against police officers who killed the Black woman during a March drug raid at her apartment.

The grand jury decision disappointed and angered those who have been calling for justice for Taylor for six months, and protesters vowed to stay in the streets until the officers involved are fired or someone is charged with her killing. On Friday evening, demonstrators, including Taylor’s mother, gathered in downtown Louisville and began marching. Some danced and chanted “bow for Breonna;” others handed out pizzas or water.

Earlier in the day, Taylor’s lawyers and family expressed dismay that no one has been held accountable for her death.

“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 mother, Tamika Palmer, wrote in a statement that was read by a relative as she stood close by in a shirt that had “I (heart) Louisville Police” with bullet holes in the heart emoji.

In her statement, Palmer said the entire justice system had failed her, and state Attorney General Daniel Cameron was just the final person in the chain that included the officer who sought the no-knock warrant, the judge who signed it, and the police who burst into her Louisville apartment.