One of three American police officers involved in the death of 26-year-old nurse Breonna Taylor in Louisville is being charged. But not for the death of the woman, but for the danger in which he brought her neighbors. Much to the anger of the many protesters who have been on the streets for justice for months.
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After months of protest against police brutality that killed Breonna Taylor, the charge against one of the three officers involved appears to have sparked more unrest and anger in Louisville, Kentucky. The cop, Brett H., is being prosecuted for endangering Taylor’s neighbors through reckless use of his weapon. Brett H. fired several bullets in Taylor’s apartment, some of which ended up in an adjacent apartment where a five-year-old child was sleeping. The child was not hit.
The two other police officers are not prosecuted. The result is that none of the three officers prosecuted for the death of Taylor himself. The nurse was killed in March of this year by a shower of police bullets and a poorly prepared police drug operation.
Taylor has been wrongly associated with a pivotal figure in the local cocaine and crack trade. In the raid, just after midnight, Taylor’s friend shot the plainclothes officers who had smashed into the apartment door. Taylor’s friend thought the officers were burglars, he later stated. No drugs were found. The plainclothes officers shot Taylor five times. In total, the three officers fired 32 bullets in the raid.
Brett H. was fired in June for “a total lack of respect for human life,” the other two agents have been transferred.
Not long after Taylor’s death, black man George Floyd was killed after a cop pressed full weight on his chest for minutes on end. His death sparked ‘Black lives matter’, a wave of protest against police brutality in the United States. Breonna Taylor also became a face of the protest, a reason to demand justice. Some of the protesters descended to the Louisville courthouse where the charges were read. They reacted furiously. About 150 protesters marched through the streets of Louisville.
Correction. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the police officer was charged with the death of Breonna Taylor.
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