MSNBC host Al Sharpton criticized the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case for charging former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison with only three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment on Wednesday.
Sharpton said, “I think it’s grossly insufficient. It does not deal with the fact that the life of Breonna Taylor was taken. It does not address her being a victim of being killed. The value of her life is not at all addressed in these charges. You could get endangerment if you shot in the air at nothing. You took a woman’s life. A woman who was in no way should have every one been in that situation because the person you were pursuing was not there. She committed no crime.”
“Her only act that night is she went to bed that night, and she is dead,” he continued. “This does not address the life when we say black lives matter. This indictment says it does not matter. To say that we’ve given some indictment which would be equivalent if you fired outside a house in the air is to really, in my opinion, devalue the life of Breonna Taylor and does not answer what the family would have said that they would have been in a way belatedly accepted a manslaughter two because manslaughter at least addresses a life. Her life is not addressed at all in these charges. I think they’re grossly insufficient. I think they’re absolutely something that falls far below what they could have legally charged and could have won in a court of law.”
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