Friend,

This week, the white police officers who killed 26-year-old Breonna Taylor while she was asleep in her bed officially got away with murder.

The grand jury investigation indicted only one of the three officers, but not for Breonna Taylor’s murder—the officer was charged with “wanton endangerment” for shooting into her neighbors’ apartment, which could have potentially hurt her neighbors.

This is outrageous and heartbreaking. Breonna Taylor’s life did not matter to anyone involved with her murder. To them, her life mattered less than the walls of her apartment.

It's never been clearer that this country considers property more valuable than Black life.

Breonna Taylor should still be alive. On her walls she put up Post-it notes with her hopes, dreams, and goals. She had so much life to live, and she deserved better. All Black women deserve better. Our communities terrorized by police deserve better.

Please add your name now to lift up the demands of Black Lives Matter Louisville and make clear: Breonna Taylor’s life mattered.

Across the country, thousands of people are rising up in defense of Breonna Taylor and of Black people’s right to exist.

In mourning and rage, protestors are understandably calling for accountability for Breonna and an overhaul of our broader police industrial complex.

We pay police officers to protect us, but they get away with murdering a Black woman in her bed?! That’s a system that’s rotten to its core.

As Black activist Bree Newsome Bass writes:¹

“One of the primary ways structural racism operates thru the legal system is by everyone pretending there’s ever a fair & impartial process informed by equal protection under the law regardless of race as opposed to the reality—that the system itself functions to codify racism.”

Acquitting the murderers of Black people is not a bug in our country’s criminal legal system. It’s part of its design, to prop up white supremacy.

That’s why Louisville's Black Lives Matter chapter is not only calling for the immediate firing of all the officers that murdered Breonna. They’re also calling for divesting from the police department and investing in community building.

The activists on the ground working with Breonna Taylor’s family recognize that our deeply corrupt, racist system cannot be reformed. It must be fundamentally changed.

Please add your name to sign onto Black Lives Matter Louisville’s demands: Justice for Breonna Taylor!

As Black author Roxane Gay wrote soon after seeing the grand jury’s decision: “It’s a special kind of cruelty that more protestors in Louisville tonight will be charged than men who murdered Breonna Taylor.”²

And her prediction came true: In just the past few days the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) has violently arrested hundreds of protestors just for exercising their First Amendment rights. All while killer police are shielded from accountability.

Clearly, more policing and militarization does not keep us safe.

That’s why Black Lives Matter Louisville is calling not only for accountability in Breonna’s case, but for deeper change and community-led safety.

Here are some of the demands from Black Lives Matter Louisville to ensure justice for Breonna Taylor:

1. Immediately fire and revoke the pensions of the officers that murdered Breonna.
2. Divest from LMPD and invest in community building.
3. Metro Council ends use of force by Louisville Metro Police Department.
4. Create a local, civilian-led community police accountability council that is independent from the Mayor’s Office and LMPD, with investigation and discipline power.
5. Create the policy to ensure transparent investigation processes.

Please add your name to sign onto Black Lives Matter Louisville’s demands for true change and justice for Breonna Taylor.

Breonna Taylor should be here today, chasing her dreams.

In addition to their list of clear demands, Black Lives Matter Louisville activists laid out their broader vision of justice and community safety, which includes:³

“Justice for Breonna means transforming the community that killed her. It means doing everything we can to fundamentally end how we all experience state violence. As white supremacists continue to mobilize—aligning with police, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump—we stay grounded in the importance of protecting each other. The way to defeat white supremacy is to fundamentally take care of each other.”

Yes! That’s why activists on the ground in my district―Michigan’s 13th district―are not only holding the city’s police department accountable but taking care of one another, too.

We know we can’t rely on Detroit’s police chief, who went on Fox News to applaud how the Kentucky Attorney General handled Breonna Taylor’s case, and has applauded his police department’s reckless violence toward protestors.

But we can rely on each other.

Here’s a photo from a Detroit Will Breathe protest this week in solidarity with Breonna Taylor:

Black Lives Matter Louisville’s vision for what freedom looks like is powerful, and it aligns with what we’re fighting for in Michigan’s 13th district and across the country:

“Our freedom is clean air, housing for every single person, community intervention for our trauma, quality police-free education, food abundance in our neighborhoods, children safely and loudly playing and laughing with each other, our elders being taken care of, all of us having the rest our minds and bodies need. It’s our neighbors living long, healthy lives. It’s no longer fearing for our safety just when we’re being our most authentic. It’s joy. It’s honoring and grieving our pain. It’s creating systems that take care of each of us, in our unique and shared ways. It’s creativity. It’s honoring the earth. It’s so much more than what we’re told is possible.”

Let’s keep fighting for more than what we’re told is possible. Let’s keep fighting for what we deserve.

Sign now to support and amplify Black Lives Matter Louisville’s demands.

Together, we can dream up and build a better future, where Black lives are valued and protected and we can all be free.

In solidarity,

Rashida