Breonna Taylor’s family demands release of body camera footage

Breonna Taylor’s family has demanded 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 over her killing.

The family also criticised the state’s attorney general for his failure to bring charges against the officers.

A diverse group, including Taylor’s mother, marched through Louisville on the evening of Friday 25 September. The demonstrations were peaceful, but at one point police in riot gear fired flash bang devices reportedly to turn back a crowd on a street. Authorities said two people were arrested.

About a dozen people who were out past the city’s curfew were arrested later.

State of emergency

Meanwhile, Oregon governor Kate Brown declared a state of emergency as she announced that state troopers and sheriff’s deputies would be sent to Portland through the weekend.

The support is being sent to help police, in the state’s largest city, monitor a weekend rally by the right-wing group Proud Boys and counter protests by liberal groups.

Portland has been roiled by demonstrations for more than three months following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Like Floyd, Taylor’s killing has also become symbolic in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Earlier, Taylor’s lawyers and family expressed dismay that no one has been held accountable for her killing. Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, wrote in a statement read by a relative:

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

Protesters march through Louisville (John Minchillo/AP)

Incorrect warrant

State attorney general Daniel Cameron’s spokesperson Elizabeth Kuhn said the prosecutor understood that Taylor’s family “is in an incredible amount of pain and anguish” and that the grand jury decision was not the one they wanted. But, the statement added, “prosecutors and grand jury members are bound by the facts and by the law”.

Taylor, a Black woman who was an emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times by white officers in her home. Authorities claim the officers opened fire after Taylor’s boyfriend fired at them.

He said he fired in self-defence. Police were conducting a drugs investigation and entered on a warrant connected to a suspect who did not live there.

Cameron has said the investigation showed officers acted in self-defence. The grand jury only charged one officer, who has already been fired, with firing into a neighbouring apartment.