Digital Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot joins protestors around the world in calling for justice...
People across the world are still calling for justice for Breonna Taylor and we have a duty to keep saying her name until change is made.
Breonna Taylor was a black woman who was killed in her home by police who broke in while she slept. And despite the incident happening on 13 March, we only heard about it months later.
The essential worker (an Emergency Medical Technician) who would have turned 27 this year, was reportedly shot eight times by police after Breonna’s partner opened fire at them, mistaking their drug raid for a home robbery.
The officers involved - Jon Mattingly, Myles Cosgrove, and Brett Hankison - reportedly claimed that they knocked and announced themselves before entering the home with a battering ram. According to ABS news however, Breonna’s family’s lawsuit, filed on April 27, disputes the claims, stating that the police ‘did not knock or identify themselves prior to entering Breonna’s home’.
It has since been reported that the police entered in plain clothes with a no knock search warrant as part of a drug raid. No drugs were found.
Progress is being made, with the Louisville council now passing 'Breonna's Law' banning no-knock warrants, but this is not enough.
Former Louisville Metro Police Department Detective Brett Hankison was fired in June for his involvement, and there have since been calls for the three officers to be charged with homicide.
Following an investigation, a judge announced this week however that Brett Hankison has been 'charged with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment by the grand jury in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor'.
No other officers involved have been charged at this time.
How have the police officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s killing not been charged directly for her death?
Protests have broken out across the world, calling the verdict 'outrageous' and demanding justice, and I'm with them.
'Today's news falls far short of what constitutes justice. But by no means does it define this movement or this moment in our history,' Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Breonna Taylor's family, announced in a statement. 'The Grand Jury may have denied Breonna justice, but this decision cannot take away her legacy as a loving, vibrant young Black woman who served on the front lines in the midst of a devastating pandemic.'
We have a duty to keep saying Breonna Taylor's name.
