SAN JOSE — Hundreds of people gathered Wednesday evening across the Bay Area to protest a Kentucky grand jury’s decision not to charge any police officers for their role in Breonna Taylor’s death in Louisville earlier this year.
The jury instead indicted a single former officer, Brett Hankison, with three counts of “wanton endangerment” for shooting into neighboring apartments.
Taylor, an emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times by officers who entered her home during a narcotics investigation on March 13. The warrant used to search her home was connected to a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.
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Protesters across the country have demanded justice for Taylor and other Black people killed by police in recent months, most notably George Floyd, who died after Minneapolis police kneeled on his back for almost nine minutes. Demonstrations have taken place in San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco and other Bay Area cities.
As of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, roughly 100 protesters had gathered outside San Jose City Hall. Among them was 25-year-old San Jose resident Daniel Barrena, who said he was disgusted the jury did not do more.
“It just shows that they’re not accountable at all to anyone,” said Barrena, who waved a Zapatista flag in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. “There’s just going to be more protests and more riots until we get the justice we deserve.”
Paris Browder said the news was “a slap in the face to me, to every Black person and to Breonna’s family specially.”
“I feel infuriated, frustrated, outraged and out of my body,” the 28-year-old San Jose resident said.
For 29-year-old San Jose resident Srishti Prabha, the indictment of a single police officer was an example “of just how much political power police have in this country.”
“It’s unfortunate that Breonna Taylor’s family is not going to get the justice they wanted,” Prabha continued. “This was a heinous crime and justice did not happen.”
As he’s putting the guillotine together, Brody Storey, 28, tells me it’s an art installation representing the coming revolution. He said “there is a rich elite and a working class and a privatised group that work together to oppress people who own like three percent of the wealth pic.twitter.com/HDnR5Vg6Wp
— Aldo Toledo (@aldot29) September 24, 2020
In Oakland, several hundred people marched through downtown chanting “Black Lives Matter” and shouting Taylor’s name. The protesters gathered at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater and then marched to the Interstate 580 on-ramp at Northgate Avenue, where they briefly stopped traffic on the freeway. Then they headed down Telegraph Avenue.
The #oaklandprotest march continues down Broadway pic.twitter.com/Ei7s0V6S0U
— Sarah Belle Lin (@SarahBelleLin) September 24, 2020
As of 9:45 p.m., no violence or clashes with police had been reported, although some demonstrators spray-painted “FTP” and “BLM” on the plywood covering up storefronts.
Oakland resident Sherry Congrave-Wilson, who was there with her 24-year-old son, was disappointed more people didn’t join the protest.
I think people are kind of tired and weary,” the 51-year-old said. “But I think I’m just going to keep coming out.”
Congrave-Wilson hadn’t been joining the protests recently. As a caregiver for her 95-year-old mother, she was worried about contracting COVID-19 from the crowds and passing it to her mother. But after hearing there would be no indictments for Taylor’s death, she decided she had to go out and march.
“It’s risky, yeah,” she said. “But I think it’s even more risky and dangerous to do nothing.”
The county is at a pivotal moment, she said, but racial injustice will continue if people don’t stand up to it.
A few hundred protesters march down Telegraph in Oakland chanting Black lives matter. #BreonnaTaylor @EastBayTimes pic.twitter.com/mYbtK97HAR
— Marisa Kendall (@MarisaKendall) September 24, 2020
In a letter to the Oakland community, Assistant City Administrator Ed Reiskin said the city was “prepared to support” protests and demonstrations spurred by the jury’s decision.
“Oakland has continued and will continue to facilitate peaceful protests and expressions of outrage about social injustice and racial inequality,” he said.
More than 100 people marched in San Francisco, closing down part of 17th street and gathering outside the police department in the Mission District.
Back in San Jose, about 50 protesters marched to the controversial Thomas Fallon statue at West Julian Street and West St. James Street. According to NBC Bay Area, the protesters set fire to the monument, which commemorates the raising of the United States flag in San Jose in 1846, when California was still a part of Mexico.
Many criminal law experts had predicted the officers wouldn’t face homicide charges because of Kentucky’s laws on self-defense. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, opened fire when the officers entered her apartment, hitting Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly.
“According to Kentucky law, the use of force by (Officers Jonathan) Mattingly and (Myles) Cosgrove was justified to protect themselves,” said state Attorney General Daniel Cameron at a news conference announcing the jury’s decision. “This justification bars us from pursuing criminal charges in Miss Breonna Taylor’s death.”
Cameron added: “The decision before my office as the special prosecutor in this case was not to decide if the loss of Ms. Taylor’s life was a tragedy. The answer to that is unequivocally yes.”
The National Police Accountability Project condemned Cameron for not charging all three officers.
“It is not up to the Attorney General to exonerate these officers. His job is merely to determine if there is probable cause to charge them. Clearly there is in this case, as there has been in so many others,” said NPAP President Michael Avery in a statement. “The Attorney General should not be allowed to blame the grand jury for failing to indict more officers on more serious charges — if he had pushed for those indictments, he would have gotten them. It is time to begin holding police officers accountable to the criminal laws they are sworn to uphold.”
Hankison was fired from the Louisville Police Department on June 23. A termination letter sent to him by interim Police Chief Robert Schroeder said the White officer had violated procedures by showing “extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he “wantonly and blindly” fired 10 rounds into Taylor’s apartment.
On Sept. 15, Louisville settled a lawsuit against the three officers brought by Taylor’s mother, Tamika Parker, agreeing to pay her $12 million and enact police reforms.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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