There is a reason why activists push for more media attention for cases where unarmed black people are killed by police and vigilantes: public scrutiny gets things done. Two months after Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by Louisville police officers who were executing a search warrant at the wrong house, her tragic death is finally starting to get the attention it deserves. Now, the governor of Kentucky is calling for a deeper look into the events that caused an innocent woman to be killed.
According to the Courier Journal, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear issued a statement urging state and federal officials to investigate Taylor’s death.
“The public reports concerning the death of Breonna Taylor are troubling,” Beshear said. “Her family and the public at large deserve the full facts regarding her death.”
On Tuesday, The Root reported that civil rights attorney Ben Crump was hired to represent Taylor’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit they filed against the Louisville Metro Police Department. Crump joined the family in attempting to garner more media attention and activist support in the interest of holding police accountable for Taylor’s death.
“If you ran for Ahmaud, you need to stand for Bre,” Crump said referencing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by neighborhood vigilantes and whose case also took months to gain attention before video footage of his death went viral.
Hopefully, Beshear’s call for investigators to “carefully review the results of the initial investigation” will yield results and keep the momentum going in making Taylor’s story part of the national conversation about racial injustice in America. As Beshear said, according to the Journal, putting pressure on state and federal officials to review Breonna’s case is especially important “when many are concerned that justice is not blind.”