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Protests Around the Nation on Anniversary of Breonna Taylor
Murder
Sojourner’s Truth Staff
Around the nation
protesters took to the streets on Saturday, March 13, to
commemorate the anniversary of the death of Breonna Taylor,
a young Black woman, at the hands, and guns, of White police
officers in Louisville, Kentucky.
Most of the protests and
marches, like the one here in Toledo, were peaceful but on
the West Coast, in Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles, some
marchers clashed with police.
In Louisville, hundreds of
demonstrators gathered and listened to speeches by Taylor’s
family and attorney Ben Crump. Crump, who has served as the
Taylor family lawyer, was particularly busy last week as he
helped settle a judgment for the George Floyd family against
the City of Minneapolis for $27 million.
President Joe Biden also
acknowledged the anniversary in a Twitter post: “Breonna
Taylor’s death was a tragedy, a blow to her family, her
community and America. As we continue to mourn her, we must
press ahead to pass meaningful police reform in Congress.”
Taylor’s aunt, Bianca
Austin, spoke during the Louisville commemoration: “All eyes
are on Louisville today, and we are here to represent
Breonna with dignity and respect.”
In Toledo, demonstrators
organized by the New Order National Human Rights
Organization gathered at the corner of Detroit and Monroe to
acknowledge the event and chant for justice.
Louisville police had
obtained a “no-knock warrant” to search Taylor’s apartment
on the evening of March 13, 2020. The warrant included her
apartment, which she shared with boyfriend Kenneth Walker,
because police suspected that her former boyfriend, Jamarcus
Glover, had received packages of drugs there.
The warrant declared that
Glover had been seen leaving her apartment months earlier
with packages believed to be illegal drugs and that this
event was verified “through a US Postal Inspector.” The U.S.
postal inspector would later announce that such
collaboration between the postal service and the Louisville
police had never occurred.
When the police arrived at
Taylor and Walker’s apartment, they banged on the door,
according to Walker, but never announced who they were. The
police would later say they did announce. Regardless of this
disputed fact, Walker, who was licensed to carry a firearm,
fired a shot at those he assumed to be intruders and wounded
an officer. The police fired 32 rounds into the apartment in
the next one minute and eight seconds – hitting Taylor with
five or six rounds, killing her. Walker was not hit.
The actions of three of
the police officers were investigated and ultimately
dismissed from the force. Although the City of Louisville
would settle a civil suit with Taylor’s family, represented
by Crump, in the amount of $12 million – the police
detectives, Brett Hankinson, Joshua Jaynes and Myles
Cosgrove, were not charged in her death. The Kentucky
Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, declined to press charges
against them for the death. Hankinson was indicted on three
counts of wanton endangerment because his shots penetrated a
neighboring apartment.
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