Breonna Taylor protests: Louisville mayor lifts curfew

The curfew has been lifted in Louisville, where many people have been charged with refusing to stop their nighttime protests after a grand jury’s decision not to charge officers in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.

Mayor Greg Fischer said he allowed the curfew to expire as of 6.30am Monday.

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Fischer said barriers and traffic restrictions set up downtown last week will remain but will be assessed daily.

Meanwhile, the Kentucky state representative Lisa Willner, a Louisville Democrat, said on Monday that she was starting to craft legislation that would narrow the scope of the state’s rioting statute. Her proposal, which she intends to offer in next year’s legislative session, would protect people from being charged with first-degree rioting if they are present but do not engage in destructive or violent actions.

Her response comes after the Democratic state representative Attica Scott was charged with the felony last week while participating in Louisville protests for racial justice.

Scott was among demonstrators who converged in downtown Louisville to express their disagreement with the grand jury decision. Many marched along Louisville’s streets chanting “Breonna Taylor, say her name,” and “no justice, no peace”.

Taylor was shot multiple times on 13 March after her boyfriend opened fire as officers entered her home during a narcotics raid, authorities said. Taylor’s boyfriend said he didn’t know who was coming in and fired in self-defense. One officer was wounded.

The grand jury indicted one officer, who was already fired, on wanton endangerment charges, saying he shot repeatedly and blindly fired shots that could have hit Taylor’s neighbors.

Kentucky’s attorney general, Daniel Cameron, said the other officers were not charged with Taylor’s killing because they acted to protect themselves.

Scott, the state’s only Black female representative, was arrested and charged on Thursday night with the felony of first-degree rioting as well as unlawful assembly and failure to disperse, which are misdemeanor offenses.

Police said Scott was in a group whose members damaged buildings and set fire to a library.

Scott called the charges “ludicrous” and said she would never be involved in setting fire to a library. She said she was arrested as she walked with her daughter to the sanctuary of a church.

Willner said Scott’s arrest “raises the question of how many others have been accused of rioting in the first degree – which is a felony – who are facing loss of voting rights, simply by being present”.