Louisville protesters vow to continue Breonna Taylor demonstrations in 2020's final months

Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression press conferences have taken place each weekend since late May as protests over the police killing of Breonna Taylor continued through the summer.

Winter coats were a common sight at Sunday's briefing, around five months since the demonstrations began. But those who spoke said they aren't going anywhere.

"We're still going to be here until we receive justice for Breonna Taylor," Kentucky Alliance co-chair Tyra Walker told those in attendance at Jefferson Square Park.

Shameka Parrish-Wright, another co-chair of the local social justice organization, has frequently taken part in the protests, which reached their 151st consecutive day on Sunday.

You can see results from the demonstrations, she said — Parrish-Wright thanked Metro Council members, for instance, for passing an ordinance last week that would put limits on use of force by Louisville Metro Police Department officers, and co-chair K.A. Owens said Jefferson Circuit Judge Annie O'Connell's ruling that would allow grand jurors to speak about the case had been received well by protesters.

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But there's work still to be done, Parrish-Wright continued. No-knock warrants like the one used the night Taylor was killed need to be banned statewide, she said — Metro Council over the summer already banned their use in Louisville — and other measures need to be taken to keep police accountable.

Walker and Parrish-Wright pushed for more transparency from Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and for the four officers at the center of Taylor's death to be fired and charged. Former officer Brett Hankison was dismissed in June and has been charged with wanton endangerment for his role in the shooting, while officer Myles Cosgrove and Det. Jonathan Mattingly, the other two LMPD officials who fired their weapons that night, remain on the force, along with Det. Joshua Jaynes, who'd secured the search warrant for the raid at her apartment.

Charges against protesters who have been arrested should be dropped as well, Parrish-Wright said.

The Kentucky Alliance also wants LMPD's qualified immunity protections discontinued, a civilian review board with power to take actions against officers to be established, for warrants to be assigned to judges at random and for measures to require body cameras to be used "every time that that an officer is addressing one of us as community, because that's starting to be the only way that we can try to prove what's happened," Parrish-Wright said.

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It was a busy weekend for protesters in Louisville, and it won't slow down as a new week begins Monday.

Around 100 demonstrators gathered Saturday night by Cameron's Louisville home to continue to push for more transparency and for action to be taken against the officers involved in Taylor's death. No arrests were reported, unlike two previous protests at the attorney general's house.

This week, speakers at Sunday's press conference urged listeners to vote if they hadn't already done so. Rhonda Mathis, a poll worker, said she'd seen first-time voters as young as 18 and as old as 82 so far this election season, with voting set to conclude on Nov. 3. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer recently dropped off his absentee ballot at the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, she added.

Demonstrations will continue in Louisville as 2021 inches closer, Parrish-Wright said. But the movement is changing with the circumstances.

"As it gets cold, we want to move towards the next level of our protests," she said. "And the next level is having the policies behind our fists in the air."

Lucas Aulbach can be reached at laulbach@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbach.