Rappers YBN Cordae and Trae Tha Truth were among 87 people arrested Tuesday afternoon (July 14) for protesting outside the home of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, demanding justice in the murder of Breonna Taylor caused by the policeman.
“Protesters chose to occupy the front yard of a house owned by the Kentucky Attorney General and sang continuously to him and his neighbors. At his request, they were invaded from the property,” said a statement from a spokesman for the Louisville Police Department. . . “Everyone was given the opportunity to leave, they were told that staying on the property would be illegal and they decided not to leave.”
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Cordae (born Cordae Amari Dunston), Truth (born Frazier Othel Thompson III) and their fellow activists demanded that Republican Cameron, the state’s first black attorney general, charge the three police officers who killed Taylor, the emergency technician for 26-year-old inside her home on March 13, when plainclothes officers wearing an arrest warrant broke down her door and unloaded more than 20 rounds on the apartment after Taylor’s boyfriend shot once fear that intruders would enter; Taylor was shot eight times.
To date, an officer has been fired for the incident, but none have been charged.
The LMPD declined to confirm the names of those arrested in the incident or provide their bail status.
While a Cordae spokesman declined to comment on the arrest at the time of publication, he was reportedly among others also arrested in the incident, according to Courier-Journal, they were the rapper from the Bronx Mysonne, Love and hip-hop star Yandy Smith, The Real Housewives of AtlantaPorsha Williams, Minneapolis NAACP President Leslie Redmond and Houston Texans wide receiver Kenny Stills.
The group of more than 100 marched to Cameron’s home during a protest organized by the national social justice organization Until Freedom, with the newspaper reporting that dozens of officers surrounded the protesters, many of whom sat on the lawn of Cameron before being handcuffed.
The protesters were charged with the Class D felony of intimidating a participant in the legal process, as well as the Class B misdemeanor of disorderly conduct of the second degree and the violation of criminal intrusion of the third degree.
Cameron asked the police to remove the protesters from his property, but they reportedly refused to leave. Taylor’s murder has become an international cause in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparking national and international protests and a massive campaign on social media urging Cameron to indict the agents involved in the case of murder.
Linda Sarsour, one of the founders of Hasta la Libertad, who was also arrested in the incident, told the New York Times, “No one participated in any threat of violence or participated in any violent activity towards Mr. Cameron or any other person.”
Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and professor of law at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, told the newspaper that felony charges were “unusual” as felony intimidation charges are generally filed against someone trying to intimidate a witness or juror in a court case, not against protesters who gather on the property of a public official.
“Typically, that would be a violation, not a charge of intimidation,” Osler said. “It certainly is not a serious crime.”
Everyone from Beyoncé to Lizzo, Justin Bieber, Queen Latifah, Sia, Common, Demi Lovato, Janet Jackson, Cardi B, and dozens more have used the hashtag #JuticeForBreonna and #SayHerName to demand action.
