Breonna Taylor: Injuries Sustained, Shots Fired as Armed Louisville Protesters Face-Off With 3 Percenter Members

An accidental shooting left three injured at a protest in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday over [...]

By Michael Hein

An accidental shooting left three injured at a protest in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday over the killing of Breonna Taylor. According to a report by The Daily Mail, an armed Black Lives Matter protest group was preparing to march through the city one member fired their gun by accident, injuring comrades. The group later had a tense stand-off with a far-right militia group, where several arrests were made.

The shooting took place in Louisville's Baxter Park, where the protesters gathered to begin their march. There were an estimated 350 armed members of an Atlanta-based group called the "Not F—ing Around Coalition," or the NFAC. It was there in Baxter Park where authorities say a firearm discharged by mistake, hitting one protester in the face and injuring at least two others. While these wounded were taken to the hospital, the protesters continued their planned march to City Hall, but they were impeded by about 50 armed members of a group called The Three Percenters.

The Three Percenters stood in the NFAC's way at Jefferson Square Park, not far from City Hall. A heated argument broke out, and police stepped in to separate the two groups. No violence was reported at this stage in the protest, yet police reportedly arrested five people.

The NFAC came from Atlanta to protest the police killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was killed in her home by police without warning when they kicked her door down with a no-knock warrant. The black-clad demonstrators took a public vow to "never allow the murder of another Black man, woman or child, whether the killer is White or Black." The group's leader, John "Grandmaster Jay" Johnson, also declared that Louisville authorities had four weeks to release "the truth" about Taylor's death, and if they didn't, the NFAC would "burn this motherf—er down."

Meanwhile, the Three Percenters reportedly claimed that they were there to provide "security." The group is a known far-right militia organization, named for the dubious claim that only 3 percent of American colonists took up arms against the British forces during the American Revolution. In a report by the CBC, experts called the Three Percenters the "most dangerous extremist group" in Canada, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has categorized the organization as "anti-government."

NFAC leader Johnson delivered a speech from the steps of City Hall while the Three Percenters were kept several hundred feet away by police. Johnson expressed his fury at the slow and inconsistent investigation into Taylor's death, and the fact that the officers responsible have not been arrested yet. He said that the investigation was expected to take four more months to complete, be he warned city officials: "You ain't got four months."

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