Louisville Hires First Black Woman Police Chief After Breonna Taylor Protests
There have been protests against police violence in Louisville, Kentucky for over 100 days. People are demanding the cops who killed Breonna Taylor be held accountable. Now city officials have hired its first Black woman police chief.
Interim Chief Robert Schroeder, who was only in the role for four months, is retiring at the end of September. The new interim police chief will be Yvette Gentry, a former Louisville Metro Police deputy chief and a graduate of the University of Louisville, according to The Courier Journal.
The 50-year-old, who originally retired from the department in 2014, is reportedly the first woman and the third African American to serve as chief of the Louisville Metro Police.
Gentry addressed the civil unrest in the city in a speech on Monday (September 8), “I will just say: That is just a glimpse of how a lot of people have been feeling for a long time, and we can't go back," Gentry said. "I think our city is at a point of reckoning that only truth can bring us out of. Only truth can break us out; only truth can take away darkness.”
See her full speech below:
Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was struck by eight bullets on March 13 as Louisville police officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove attempted to serve a no-knock warrant on her home during a narcotics investigation. Her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who was asleep in bed next to her, fired his licensed gun first, believing intruders were invading their home and striking an officer in the leg. Officers returned fire, killing Taylor. No drugs were found in the home.
Only one officer, Brett Hankison, has been fired. The other two officers, Mattingly and Cosgrove, have been temporarily taken off the street. No arrests have been made in connection with Taylor's death.
The killing of Breonna Taylor, along with the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, prompted worldwide protests over the summer that continue today.
BET has been covering every angle of the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and other social justice cases and the subsequent aftermath and protests. For our continuing coverage, click here.
