Oprah’s Erects 26 Billboards Demanding Justice For Breonna Taylor Outside Louisville, Kentucky

Friday, August 7, 2020

Oprah Winfrey and the O Magazine team are erecting 26 billboards (representing every year of Breonna Taylor’s life) demanding justice for Breonna Taylor who was fatally shot by Louisville police while they were serving a warrant back in mid-March.

Oprah’s Erects 26 Billboards Demanding Justice For Breonna Taylor Outside Louisville, Kentucky

The billboards will feature the same image of Taylor that was used for O magazine cover. The billboards also feature a URL for the social justice organization website UntilFreedom.com and a quote from Winfrey, saying, “If you turn a blind eye to racism, you become an accomplice to it.”

The billboard activation began on Thursday (Aug 6) and will be completed by Monday. Until Freedom is a national organization focused on racial and social injustices who recently moved its entire network to Louisville.

According to WKLY, the call to action reads: “Demand that the police involved in killing Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged. Visit UntilFreedom.com.”

Last week, for the first time in the magazine’s history, Winfrey dedicated the cover of O Magazine to Breonna Taylor for the September issue, which becomes available on Aug. 11.

The public outcry for justice in Taylor’s case has been far and wide, with many frustrated why the decision in the Breonna Taylor case is taking so long.

Protesters clash with the police on Friday in Louisville, Ky. They were calling for police accountability in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron tweeted an update on Friday saying his office is waiting on additional testing and analysis from federal partners, including a ballistics test from the FBI crime lab for evidence collected during a two-day search at Taylor’s Louisville apartment on June 19th. Investigators found a significant amount of ballistic evidence and completed a shooting reconstruction, according to an FBI representative.

That evidence is now being analyzed at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. In a news release on Friday (Aug 7)the FBI said, “once the FBI Laboratory has completed its findings, FBI Louisville will promptly share our results with the Attorney General’s Office.” Based on Cameron’s tweet, a decision won't be made in the case on Taylor’s killing until that evidence is ready.

The Kentucky Attorney General’s office will decide whether to charge the three LMPD officers involved in Taylor’s death: Sgt. Jon Mattingly, who was shot by Taylor’s boyfriend that night, Det. Myles Cosgrove and Det. Brett Hankison. So far, LMPD fired Hankison, citing misconduct the night of Taylor’s death.

What happened to Breonna Taylor:

Shortly after midnight on March 13, Louisville police officers executed a no-knock warrant, which allow the police to enter without warning and without identifying themselves as law enforcement and entered the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician by using a battering ram.

Ms. Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in bed, but got up when they heard a loud banging at the door. After a brief exchange, Mr. Walker fired his gun. The police also fired several shots, striking Ms. Taylor.

The police had been investigating two men who they believed were selling drugs out of a house was not Ms. Taylor’s home. A judge signed a warrant allowing the police to search Ms. Taylor’s residence because they believed that one of the two men had used her apartment to receive packages.

Mr. Walker told investigators that Ms. Taylor coughed and struggled to breathe for at least five minutes after she was shot, according to The Louisville Courier Journal. Taylor failed to receive proper medical attention for more than 20 minutes after being shot, citing dispatch logs.

Drugs were ever found in her apartment.

#Sayhername 💜

More coming on this story as its developing.