Louisville Police Officer Shot as Community Reels From Breonna Taylor Decision

In the wake of the grand jury's decision in the case of the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, violence has broken out in Louisville, Kentucky. According to WKLY News, a Louisville Metro Police officer was wounded in a shooting in downtown Louisville on Wednesday night. A spokesperson for the Louisville Metro Police Department confirmed that the shooting took place at around 8:30 p.m. local time.

The shooting reportedly took place around South Brook and East Broadway, per MetroSafe's initial reports. There have been no further details released about the officer's condition. As previously mentioned, this incident comes hours after an announcement made in the case of Taylor, a 25-year-old Black woman who was shot and killed after three police officers shot 10 rounds into the house as she slept. She was killed back in March when three officers — Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove — from the Louisville Police Department served a no-knock warrant at her home.

On Wednesday afternoon, only one of the three officers involved in this incident, Hankison, was charged. He was indicted on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment in the death of Taylor. It should be noted that this does not serve as a verdict, as that would come at the end of a trial. But, these charges are based on prosecutable evidence that has been made available. Hankison appeared to be the only one of the three officers who was fired from the Louisville Police Department following this incident. LMPD Chief Rob Schroeder wrote in Hankison's dismissal letter, "I have determined you violated Standard Operating Procedure ... when your actions displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life when you wantonly and blindly fired ten rounds into the apartment of Breonna Taylor."

It was recently revealed that the city of Louisville has agreed to pay Taylor's family $12 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit settlement. At the time, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer spoke about this report and noted that he wants to make sure that a tragedy like this doesn't occur again. "My administration is not waiting to move ahead with needed reforms to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again," he said, per the New York Times. "When you know what the right thing to do is you do it. Why wait?"