Larry Windrow
Calls for justice and police reform in the United States echoed across the United States on Saturday, a year after the death of Bronna Taylor, a young black woman shot dead by Louisville police officers at her apartment.
Demonstration in Brooklyn on March 13, 2021.
AFP
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Kentucky (Middle East) at the invitation of his relatives to mark the first anniversary. “We are not finished, we must continue to move forward,” said Kenneth Walker’s comrade, a young woman who saw the tragedy.
On March 13, 2020, at midnight, police raided the home of 26-year-old caregiver Prona Taylor as part of a drug trafficking investigation targeting her ex-boyfriend. His new friend Kenneth Walker believed they were robbers and fired from a legally owned gun. Three officers retaliated and Prona Taylor was shot about 20 times. The police were given a “no knock” warrant and were authorized to break down the door without warning. They claim that Kenneth Walker declared themselves to be the same in dispute.
In late September, Kentucky Justice announced that they would not be prosecuted for the young woman’s death. Only one of them was accused of endangering Prona Taylor’s neighbors, which was considered “insult and slander” by her family.
The beliefs of his relatives are now within federal justice, which opened the trial in May 2020. “The FBI in Louisville is determined to bring it to an appropriate conclusion,” its official Robert Brown promised Saturday. Release, “Significant Progress”.
“It could have been me”
For his part, Democrat Joe Biden lamented the “tragic death” and stressed the importance of a broad plan to reform the police, which was approved in the House of Representatives but delayed in the Senate, where Republicans are blocking minorities. “We must continue to press Congress to pass this important police reform, and I am committed to signing it,” he tweeted as the crowd marched through the streets of Louisville.
Camille Basque, a 50-year-old African-American at the rally, came out of Atlanta openly, “to represent those who no longer have a voice, because their hearts have stopped beating”. “It could have been me, it could have been someone in my family,” he told AFP, his voice choking with emotion. “It’s been a year and justice has not yet been served,” he lamented.
The death of Bronna Taylor did not attract much attention at first, but it came to the fore again as part of the larger anti-racist protests that rocked the United States after the death of George Floyd, a black forty-one suffocating white man on May 25 in Minneapolis.
To put an end to a family complaint, Louisville Town Hall agreed to pay $ 12 million to Prona Taylor’s family and begin the first reforms of its police force.
Laurence Malcom
