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Breonna Taylor's lawyer demands grand jury transcripts as anger over lack of charges continues

BREONNA TAYLOR’S family lawyer Ben Crump called today for Kentucky’s attorney-general to release transcripts from the grand jury that declined to charge police officers over her death.

Mr Crump said that people deserved to know if anyone present had given the slain black woman a voice.

Protests have engulfed Ms Taylor’s home town of Louisville since the jury decided not to charge police officers for killing her after they burst into her home in March.

Police entered on a warrant connected to a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found inside.

The grand jury decided that it would only level charges against one officer, and this would be for “wanton endangerment” because he had fired shots at neighbours’ homes when police responded to a gunshot from Ms Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who says he thought they were criminals breaking in, with a hail of bullets.

Mr Crump has denounced the decision as a “sham” and “an example of America’s two justice systems – protecting white neighbours and ignoring the death of a black woman.”

And the issue was far from isolated, he charges, writing in the Washington Post: “We wouldn’t know Breonna’s name if her death hadn’t happened in a season of police killings when America was getting quickly woke to it.”

Black Lives Matter demonstrators marched again in Louisville on Thursday night. Protester Lavel White said: “We’ve got to take it lying down that the law won’t protect us. If we can’t get justice for Breonna Taylor, can we get justice for anybody?” 

The demonstration continued beyond a night-time curfew, with police blocking the exits of a church where protesters gathered to avoid arrest. By 1am today, police had arrested 24 people, including a Kentucky state representative, Democrat Attica Scott.

Portland, Oregon, continued to see more violent clashes, with protesters setting fire to its Police Association building again and throwing petrol bombs at officers. Far-right militia the Proud Boys said its members would rally in the city on Saturday in support of US President Donald Trump and the police.

Seventeen-year-old killer Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of shooting dead two anti-racist protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will fight extradition for trial to that state from his home in Illinois, his lawyer said today.

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