Alicia Keys asked her 30 million Twitter followers one question: “Do you know what happened to Breonna Taylor?”
In a nearly three-minute video posted today (June 10), Keys led a crucial call-to-action video that featured Tamika Palmer, who recalled the brutal murder of her child. Taylor, a Kentucky-based EMT, was fatally shot eight times in her home on March 13 after three Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers broke in using a “no-knock” warrant.
“They fired 22 times, eight of those bullets landed in the body of the most essential worker I will ever know,” Palmer said about her late daughter. “Now the whole city is mad, now the whole world is mad. Breonna should not be dead. Some days, I feel like I can’t breathe without her. This should never happen to another family. I am Breonna Taylor’s mother, say her name!”
Tamika Mallory, an activist who helped organize the 2017 Women’s March and co-founded the intersectional social justice organization Until Freedom, listed out the four necessary steps to seek justice for her case. First, Mallory advised to call the Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer to demand he fires the three officers responsible for her murder. Next, she said to call the Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to demand he charges the three officers. Third, Mallory asked viewers to call the interim police chief, Robert Schroeder, and demand he completes the investigation so he can turn it over to Taylor’s lawyers and the Attorney General. Lastly, she called on Louisville residents to contact the members of their council and demand they vote to ban “no-knock” warrants, which are typically issued by a judge that allow local law enforcement to enter a resident’s home without any immediate warning like a knock or doorbell ring.
Sia, Snoh Aalegra, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, Janelle Monáe, Ellen DeGeneres, Kerry Washington, Zoe Saldana, Chloe x Halle, Marsai Martin, Tinashe, MC Lyte, Rapsody, Kelly Roland and more female stars asked the initial question at the very end of the clip.
Watch the moving call-to-action video for Breonna Taylor below.