George Clooney has announced that he is 'ashamed' after the Breonna Taylor verdict
People across the world are calling for justice for Breonna Taylor after a judge announced this week that none of the officers involved in her killing would be charged directly with her death.
Breonna Taylor was a black woman who was killed in her home by police who broke in while she slept.
The essential worker (an Emergency Medical Technician) who would have turned 27 this year, was reportedly shot eight times by police after Breonna’s partner opened fire at them, mistaking their drug raid for a home robbery.
The officers involved – Jon Mattingly, Myles Cosgrove, and Brett Hankison – reportedly claimed that they knocked and announced themselves before entering the home with a battering ram. According to ABS news however, Breonna’s family’s lawsuit, filed on April 27, disputes the claims, stating that the police ‘did not knock or identify themselves prior to entering Breonna’s home’.
It has since been reported that the police entered in plain clothes with a no knock search warrant as part of a drug raid. No drugs were found.
Former Louisville Metro Police Department Detective Brett Hankison was fired in June for his involvement, and there have since been calls for the three officers to be charged with homicide.
Following an investigation, a judge announced this week however that Brett Hankison has been ‘charged with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment by the grand jury in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor’.
No other officers involved have been charged at this time.
During his remarks that have prompted protests, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron stated: ‘There will be celebrities, influencers, and activists who have never lived in Kentucky who try to tell us how to feel, suggesting they understand the facts of this case, and that they know our community and the commonwealth better than we do. But they do not.’
Kentucky-born George Clooney has spoken out in response, insisting that he is ‘ashamed’.
‘I was born and raised in Kentucky. Cut tobacco on the farms of Kentucky. Both my parents and my sister live in Kentucky. I own a home in Kentucky, and I was there last month,’ he said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. ‘The justice system I was raised to believe in holds people responsible for their actions. Her name was Breonna Taylor and she was shot to death in her bed by 3 white police officers, who will not be charged with any crime for her death.’
He continued: ‘I know the commonwealth. And I was taught in the schools and churches of Kentucky what is right and what is wrong. I’m ashamed of this decision.’
We will continue to update this story.
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