Officials plead for calm amid anger over Breonna Taylor case
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.