Beyonce asks Cameron to press charges against officers in Breonna Taylor’s death
Published 8:26 am Monday, June 15, 2020
In a Sunday letter penned to her website, music superstar Beyoncé is asking Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to charge the Louisville police officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor.
She said the investigation into the shooting has led to weeks of protests in the city and “created more questions than answers.”
Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was in her apartment on March 13 when Louisville Metro police fatally shot her just before 1 a.m. while serving a no-knock search warrant during a drug investigation.
The plainclothes officers knocked and announced their presence before breaking down Taylor’s door with a battering ram, according to court records.
Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was in the apartment and was startled, thinking they were intruders. He fired one shot, hitting Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the thigh. Mattingly and officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove returned fire, hitting Taylor at least eight times, records show. She died in her hallway.
Breonna’s Law passed in Louisville and Sen. Rand Paul has introduced federal legislation that will also ban no-knock warrants. “These small steps in the right direction are painful reminders that there has still been no justice for Breonna Taylor or her family,” she said in the letter.
Beyoncé wrote “three months have passed and zero arrests have been made, and no officers have been fired.”
The letter said Breonna’s family deserves closure.
“Ms. Taylor’s family has not been able to take time to process and grieve,” she wrote. “Instead, they have been working tirelessly to rally the support of friends, their community, and the country to obtain justice for Breonna.”
Beyoncé wrote that Cameron’s office has “both the power and responsibility to bring justice to Breonna Taylor and demonstrate the value of a Black woman’s life. I urge you to use that power.”
Other celebrities, including Matt Damon and Kanye West, have shown support for Breonna’s family with petitions and fundraising on their platforms.