‘Despicable cowardice.’ McConnell, McGrath denounce police shooting in Louisville.
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Amy McGrath denounced a shooting that injured two police officers in Louisville Wednesday night amid protests after a grand jury declined to criminally charge police for the killing of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor.
In a speech on the floor of the Senate Thursday morning, McConnell painted a picture of lawlessness on the streets of Louisville.
“Peaceful protests move us toward justice. Smashing windows does not, setting fires does not, rioting in the streets does not,” McConnell said. “And trying to gun down law enforcement officers who are bravely serving their communities is the kind of despicable cowardice that must be met with the full force of the law.”
Louisville Chief of Police Robert Schroeder said Thursday in a news conference that it is too early to know the motivation of the shooter and if he was a protester.
McConnell painted a bleak picture of a chaotic and confusing night of protests in Louisville. Scattered groups of protesters marched through the city while others stayed in Jefferson Square Park, which has been occupied by protesters keeping vigil for Taylor since May.
There was a heavy police presence — including military grade vehicles — and police officers wore full riot gear and moved in lines of police cars that snaked through the streets of downtown.
By highlighting trashcan fires, vulgar language spray painted on plywood window coverings and the shooting, McConnell stayed on message with his reelection campaign. He has used violence in cities like Portland, Oregon to criticize McGrath and the Democratic Party as a whole.
McGrath, too, quickly denounced the shooting in Louisville Wednesday night. On Twitter, she called the shooting “unacceptable.”
“I urge everyone to remain peaceful and to stay safe,” McGrath wrote. “Our focus needs to be on tearing down systemic injustices, not tearing down our communities or harming each other. My prayers tonight are for Breonna Taylor’s family, the injured officers and the entire city of Louisville.”
McGrath also put out a statement before the grand jury indicted former LMPD officer Brett Hankison on three charges of wanton endangerment for firing blindly into Taylor’s apartment and potentially putting three people in a neighboring apartment at risk.
At a campaign stop in Paducah shortly after the indictment was announced, McGrath refused to take questions from reporters and has not directly answered whether the indictment provided justice for Taylor’s family. She appeared at Jefferson Square Park Thursday afternoon, according to the Courier Journal.
Shortly after this article first published online Thursday, McGrath put a statement on Twitter calling for Attorney General Daniel Cameron to “release the grand jury report now.”
“Breonna’s family and Kentucky deserve to know what happened the night she was killed,” she wrote. “The fact that the grand jury did not even consider charges in the events that led to her death created confusion and anger.”
It is not uncommon for a campaign to avoid questions from the press in the midst of a fast moving story — McConnell has avoided the press after President Donald Trump has said something controversial, for example — but the decision to issue a statement before the indictment and only comment on the shooting Wednesday highlights her challenge campaigning as a Democrat in a conservative state.
McGrath’s campaign has focused heavily on winning over “persuadable” voters who may be frustrated with Trump, opening her up to criticism from her liberal base, who believe the only way to defeat McConnell is to bring new voters into the fold by taking a bold, progressive stand.
At the protests Wednesday night, one man who addressed the crowd pressed the importance of voting.
“Right here, right now, this is history,” he told the crowd circled around him. “Right now I need to get everyone to get out and register to vote. Because this is useless if our voice isn’t heard.”
For his part, McConnell commended Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s investigation of Taylor’s death, saying he believed his young protege did a thorough job investigating the facts.
“I have full confidence in the attorney general’s painstaking pursuit of facts and justice,” McConnell said.
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 2:28 PM.
