Beyoncé posted an open letter to Kentucky’s attorney general on Sunday, June 14, calling for the police officers involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor to be charged.
In the letter to Attorney General Daniel Cameron posted on her official website, the Grammy winner, 38, pointed out that it has been three months since members of the Louisville Metro Police Department executed a “no-knock” warrant and forced their way into Taylor’s apartment, “where she was asleep and unarmed,” shooting and killing the 26-year-old EMT.
Beyoncé writes that “the LMPD’s investigations have created more questions than answers” with the department’s incident report stating that Taylor “suffered no injuries — yet we know she was shot at least eight times.”
The officers claim they announced themselves before entering the apartment on March 13, “but her boyfriend who was with her, as well as several neighbors, all say that this is untrue,” the “Halo” singer continues. She adds that “zero arrests have been made, and no officers have been fired.”
Noting that while “Breonna’s Law” passed in Louisville on Friday, June 12, to ban no-knock search warrants, “Breonna Taylor’s family still waits for justice.”
Beyoncé urges Cameron to “demonstrate the value of a Black woman’s life” and “bring criminal charges” against the three officers involved — Jonathan Mattingly, Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankinson. She also asks that the attorney general’s office investigates the police department’s “response to Breonna Taylor’s murder, as well the pervasive practices that result in the repeated deaths of unarmed Black citizens.”
“Don’t let this case fall into the pattern of no action after a terrible tragedy,” Beyoncé writes in conclusion. “With every death of a Black person at the hands of the police, there are two real tragedies: the death itself, and the inaction and delays that follow it. This is your chance to end that pattern. Take swift and decisive action in charging the officers. The next months cannot look like the last three.”
The deaths of Taylor, George Floyd — who died in Minneapolis in May while in police custody — and Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot in February by white vigilantes while jogging near his home in Brunswick, Georgia, have sparked Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S. and around the world.
