Breonna Taylor’s Family Calls for Probe Details: Protest Wrap

Kentucky Lawmaker Charged; Portland Fears Clashes: Protest Wrap

27 Sep 2020, 03:30 PM IST

(Bloomberg) -- Breonna Taylor’s family is joining the call for Kentucky’s attorney general to release all information related to the investigation into her fatal shooting after a grand jury chose not to file murder charges against any of the police officers.

The family is demanding that all body camera footage, police files and transcripts of the grand jury proceedings be released, Associated Press reported. A third night of protest was held in Louisville following the grand jury’s decision. The demonstration, which started peacefully, eventually led to clashes with the police, and police in riot gear fired flash bang devices to disperse the crowd, AP said. Two were arrested.

“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,” AP cited a statement by Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, that was read by a relative.

A Kentucky lawmaker who sponsored a bill to end no-knock warrants was among the protesters arrested Thursday night in Louisville. State Representative Attica Scott, the state’s only Black female legislator, was released from jail Friday morning after being charged with first-degree rioting, a felony, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. Scott was attending a demonstration after Kentucky’s governor issued another plea to the state attorney general to release all information from the probe.

Key Developments:

Trump Tells Black Voters That Democrats Take Them for Granted
Oregon Governor Sends State Police to Portland for Protests
Breonna Taylor Case Spurs Police Overhaul Tied Up in Labor Talks
Black Voters’ Mail-Ballot Rejections Are a Warning for Democrats

In Portland, Oregon, thousands of members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing group, plan to rally at a park on Saturday afternoon, the Washington Post reported. The city has seen violent protests for months. Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared a state of emergency and announced plans to send state troopers and sheriffs deputies to Portland through the weekend to help police monitor the rally and counter protests, the Associated Press reported.

Protesters in Los Angeles returned to Hollywood demanding racial justice, one day after two separate vehicles rammed through crowds, KTLA reported.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the 17-year-old charged in the shooting deaths of two protesters is fighting his extradition from Illinois, but his attorneys didn’t outline their strategy during a brief hearing on Friday and legal experts say there isn’t much the teen can do to stop it, Associated Press reported.

Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested at his home in Antioch, Illinois, a day after prosecutors allege he shot and killed two protesters and injured a third on the streets of Kenosha on Aug. 25. His attorneys have said Rittenhouse acted in self-defense and have portrayed him as a courageous patriot who was exercising his right to bear arms during unrest over the shooting of Jacob Blake, who is Black.

President Donald Trump, who has been highly critical of Black Lives Matter protesters while touting himself as the law-and-order candidate, made an appeal to Black voters, a group poised to vote overwhelmingly against him in November. Trump spoke Friday in Atlanta, the capital of the swing state of Georgia.

Democrats “want to take the Black voter for granted, and they have taken the Black voter for granted,” Trump said as he announced a plan to promote economic policies to benefit Black Americans.

New York Attorney General Letitia James recommended that New York City police should be removed from carrying out low-level traffic enforcement. As officials nationwide are re-evaluating the role of law enforcement, she said that “the vast majority” of traffic stops “do not involve criminal conduct, yet often end in violence.”

Her recommendation came in a report on the death of Allan Feliz, shot in the Bronx by a police sergeant last October after being pulled over for not wearing a seat belt. The sergeant said he feared being run over. James said she could not bring criminal charges because “we could not prove that the use of deadly force was unjustified beyond a reasonable doubt.”