Black Armed Protesters March in Kentucky Demanding Justice for Breonna Taylor

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) – A group of heavily armed black protesters marched through Louisville, Kentucky, demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed in March by police officers who broke into her apartment.

Dozens of protesters, carrying semi-automatic rifles and shotguns and dressed in black paramilitary equipment, walked in formation toward a fenced intersection where police separated them from a smaller group of armed counter-protesters.

The black militia called the NFAC wants justice for Taylor, a 26-year-old EMS technician who died in a shower of gunfire when drug investigators carrying a “do not touch” order entered his Louisville home four months ago.

A police officer involved in the raid was fired by the city police department in June. Two other officers have been placed on administrative reassignment. No criminal charges have been filed against any of the three.

NFAC group leader John “Grandmaster Jay” Johnson called on officials to speed up the investigation of his death and be more transparent.

“If you don’t tell us anything, we’ll think you’re doing nothing,” Johnson said in a speech, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.

The death of Taylor, who returned to fame after the May 25 suffocation in George Floyd police custody by Minneapolis, has become a rallying cry in national protests against police brutality and racial prejudice in the United States criminal justice system.

The NFAC first came to attention on July 4 when they demonstrated in Stone Mountain Park, near Atlanta, to demand the removal of the giant Confederate rock carving at the site that civil rights activists consider a monument to racism.

In Louisville on Saturday, three members of the group were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries when a weapon was accidentally fired, police said.