NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — People from all over Nashville came out to protest this week’s decision in the Breonna Taylor case on Saturday afternoon.
About a dozen speakers led off a rally at Legislative Plaza to a packed, masked crowd of demonstrators holding signs and chanting. The group marched through downtown afterward.
Organizers say they are pushing for murder charges in the case, and are demanding that their voices be heard.
The Kentucky grand jury indicted one of the three police officers involved in the death of Taylor, but the indictment was for shooting his gun at Taylor’s neighbor’s apartment.
The officer indicted, Detective Brett Hankison, faces up to five years in prison if convicted, Attorney General Daniel Cameron said.
The two other officers, Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, were not charged because the investigation showed that under Kentucky law they “were justified in the return of deadly fire after having been fired upon by Kenneth Walker,” Taylor’s boyfriend, Cameron said.
Taylor’s death, alongside that of George Floyd, a Black man who died in May after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck, helped spark a nationwide wave of protests demanding racial justice and an end to the use of excessive force by law enforcement.
Immediately after the announcement, people were expressing frustration that the grand jury did not do more.
Following the announcement, some Nashville residents traveled to Kentucky to protest. At least two of them were arrested. Katie Corbett and Megan Hurt talked to News 2 about what happened.
“All of the sudden behind my head I hear the cops say like ‘Are you ready? Grab her!’ And they grabbed me by my backpack and slung me through the police line and jumped on top of me. I didn’t do anything! You know what I’m saying,” Hurt said.
“It was really rough to see. There were a lot of people that were obviously heart broken,” Corbett said. “It’s not justice. A person is charged for the shots that missed.”
Attorney Ben Crump, who represents Taylor’s family, tweeted that the lack of charges directly related to Breonna Taylor’s death is “outrageous and offensive.”
In creating his account of Taylor’s death, the attorney general said his investigators had no video footage from the shooting. Meanwhile, Governor Andy Beshear requested Cameron to post all of the information, facts, and evidence so everyone can “deserve to see the facts for themselves.”
A second rally will be held Sunday afternoon at Hadley Park.
NewsNation contributed to this report.
