In despair, protesters take to streets for Breonna Taylor

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Some of them raised their fists and called out “Black lives matter!” Others tended to the letters, flowers and signs grouped together in a square in downtown Louisville. All of them said her name: Breonna Taylor.

People dismayed that the officers who shot the Black woman in her apartment during a drug raid last March wouldn’t be charged with her death vowed to persist in their fight for justice. The big question for a town torn apart by Taylor’s death and the larger issue of racism in America was how to move forward.

Many turned to the streets — as they did in several U.S. cities — to call for reforms to combat racist policing.

“We’ve got to take it lying down that the law won’t protect us, that they can get away with killing us,” said Lavel White, a regular protester in downtown Louisville who is Black. He was drawn to a march Thursday night because he was devastated by a grand jury’s decision a day earlier not to charge the officers. “If we can’t get justice for Breonna Taylor, can we get justice for anybody?”

He was angry that police in riot gear were out in force when protesters had been peaceful as they streamed through the streets of downtown Louisville past a nighttime curfew. Demonstrators also gathered in places like Los Angeles where a vehicle ran through a crowd of protesters, injuring one person. In Portland, Oregon — a city that has seen many protests since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis — a fire was set at a police union building.