LOUISVILLE, Kentucky: Two Louisville officers were shot during protests on Wednesday (Sep 24) and one suspect was in custody, police said, after demonstrations erupted in the US city when charges were filed against only one policeman involved in the fatal shooting in March of black woman Breonna Taylor.
The officers' injuries were "not life-threatening" and both were in stable condition and undergoing treatment, Louisville interim police chief Robert Schroeder told reporters.
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"We have one suspect in custody," he said.
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Earlier, Kentucky's attorney-general Daniel Cameron said the two white policemen who fired into Taylor's apartment will not be prosecuted for her death because their use of force during the raid was justified.
A third officer was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment, a relatively low-level felony, stemming from bullets he fired astray into an adjacent apartment of Taylor's neighbours.
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Benjamin Crump, a prominent civil rights lawyer representing the Taylor family, denounced the outcome of the grand jury probe, saying it was "outrageous" that none of the three officers involved in the raid was criminally charged with causing Taylor's death.
Protesters immediately took to the streets chanting, "No lives matter until black lives matter", marching for hours through Kentucky's largest city, amid sporadic clashes with police in riot gear.
A state of emergency and a 9pm curfew have been declared by the mayor of the city, which has a population of 600,000, with much of downtown closed to traffic.
Some downtown business owners boarded up their shops in anticipation of unrest sparked by the grand jury decision.
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The demonstrations wore on past nightfall in defiance of the curfew and remained mostly peaceful until several gunshots rang out in the midst of a skirmish between protesters and heavily armed police, sending members of the crowd scurrying for cover.
A Reuters journalist on the scene heard the gunfire erupt from the crowd moments after police had fireRead More – Source
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