In an effort to raise more awareness over the killing of Breonna Taylor, O, The Oprah Magazine has commissioned 26 billboards to be placed across Louisville, Ky. They call for the arrest of the police officers, who currently roam free, to be held accountable for their actions that fateful day.
What We Know:
- According to an article on the magazine’s website, each billboard will have the following text: “Demand that the police involved in killing Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged.” The significance of the number 26 is to represent the number of years Taylor was alive, one sign for every year.
- The billboards will also include a direct address of the Until Freedom website, a platform used by the social justice organization to push for action against Taylor’s killers. Aside from the call to action and website, the beautiful artwork revealed 2 weeks ago for the magazine cover will be added. It will mark the first time in the publication’s 20-year run that Oprah Winfrey herself, has not been on the cover.
“Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping,” Winfrey recalled in a column for the September issue. “And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem. What I know for sure: We can’t be silent.”
- On March 13th, Taylor was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) early in the morning after local police officers carried through a “no-knock” warrant. They stormed her apartment where Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend, were simply sleeping. Her boyfriend fired back in self-defense and within the commotion, Taylor was fatally injured.
- Walker was confirmed as a legally licensed gun owner and believed the officers were simply intruders in their property. His attorney stated that while firing at them, one officer was struck in the leg. Police responded with shooting Taylor eight times.
- As the current state of the country has been demonstrating, Taylor’s death ignited even more to the flame of escalating racial tensions, two months later after the now infamous killing of George Floyd.
The chief of LMPD, Rob Schroeder, initiated termination procedures against the officer Hankison back in June after they found him guilty of displaying “extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
