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E BLM MOVEMENT
system rarely holds police officers accountable for
killing on the job. Ben Crump, the Floyd family’s
lawyer, said it marked a “turning point in history”
for the US. “Painfully earned justice has finally arrived,”
Crump tweeted. “[It] sends a clear message
on the need for accountability of law enforcement.”
Breonna Taylor, a medical worker was killed
on March 13, 2020, in a police raid gone horribly
wrong. The police said they had a warrant to search
Taylor’s apartment to investigate two men who
were believed to be selling illegal drugs there. Taylor
was said to be in an on and off relationship with
one of them, but had severed ties with him at that
time. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot an
officer in the leg after the police broke the door off
its hinges. The police responded by shooting Taylor
six times in a matter of seconds. One of the officers,
Brett Hankison, who has since been fired, is accused
of firing 10 rounds blindly into the apartment.
These deaths prompted large protests under
the name Black Lives Matter, capturing attention
nationwide. The protesters and organizers have had
impactful results on this country. For instance, cities
across the globe are cutting police department
funds, 31 of America’s 100 largest cities have established
policies restricting officers’ use of chokeholds,
and Breonna’s Law passed in Louisville, Kentucky,
banning the “no-knock’’ search warrant that led to
Taylor’s death at the hands of the police.
After police killed Floyd and Taylor, social media
sites such as Instagram and Twitter were flooded
with information on the Black Lives Matter movement,
killings of unarmed Black people, protests
and legislation. Twenty-three percent of adult social
media users in the United States, and 17 percent of
adults overall say their views about a political or social
issue changed because of something they saw
on social media in the past year, according to a July
Pew Research Center survey.
Boyega said, “Today is about innocent people
who were halfway through their process, we don’t
know what George Floyd could have achieved, but
today we’re going to make sure that won’t be an
alien thought to our young ones.”
Editor-in-Chief Lauren Sheperd contributed to reporting.
Timeline by Annie Sullivan
SPRING 2021 THE SHAKERITE 17