BOSTON — Hundreds if not thousands gathered at Nubian Square Friday. The diverse group included different ages, different races, but they were unified.
“How can you do anything but be out here right now? I cannot study right now,” said Gabrielle Milton of Roxbury. “I’m in dental school right now and all I can do is be here, it makes no sense why I have to be here.”
Many protesters chanted “Say her name” and “Defund the police.”
Feeling there’s nothing else to do in 2020, but march, that’s what they did. They marched a mile to the Boston Police Headquarters and then another mile and a half to Peters Park and then a mile and a half to City Hall. The crowd didn’t lose any energy, as they honored the life and mourned the death of Breonna Taylor, a black woman shot and killed by a white police officer who was executing a search warrant.
“It’s not up to black people to do anything, we have done everything,” said Milton. “It’s up to white people who are privileged, who sit at the top of every sector of our world right now to speak up spread awareness, and get some stuff done because this is not it.”
And the crowd was in full support.
“It’s really simple. I believe if you only live a life where you are not fighting for other people then you’re not really live in a life worth living,” said Julia Gaffney of Brighton. “We are out here to get justice for Breonna Taylor and every black person that has been treated unfairly by this racist justice system.”
“We’re tired black women are tired,” said Milton. “Black women are tired.”
Protests were held across the country this week calling for justice for Taylor, 26, who was killed during a police raid of her Kentucky apartment on March 13.
Detective Brett Hankison, who was fired from the police department in June, was charged with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment for shooting into Taylor’s apartment from outside, endangering the lives of three people in the apartment next door.
The grand jury determined that two other officers, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, were justified in the shooting.
MORE: Breonna Taylor shooting: Former detective indicted on wanton endangerment charges
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