Louisville Mayor Fires Police Chief After Fatal Shooting Amid Protests | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is Tim Pearce.

    Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer fired the city's police chief after two officers involved in the fatal shooting of a man amid protests over police brutality failed to turn on their body cameras. Fischer also fired the two officers who failed to activate their body cameras.

    Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) Chief Steve Conrad had intended to retire at the end of June. Conrad has faced pressure from protesters and investigators over the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black emergency room technician, in March.

    "As I learned some of the details about what happened last night, I learned that the body cameras of the officers present were not activated," Fischer said on Monday. "This type of institutional failure will not be tolerated. Accordingly, I have relieved Steve Conrad of his duties as chief of Louisville Metro Police Department."

    Louisville police officers and members of the Kentucky National Guard exchanged gunfire with an unidentified shooter early Monday morning in a grocery store parking lot. The officers were responding to a call of a group of people violating the city-wide 9 p.m. curfew.

    "Officers and soldiers began to clear the lot and at some point were shot at," Conrad said earlier Monday. "Both LMPD and National Guard members returned fire."

    McAtee, who ran a popular barbecue joint, was the only fatality in the exchange. It is unclear whether he was the initial shooter or not, though witnesses and friends say that McAtee was not an active participant in any protest. The parking lot that McAtee and others were in was a popular late-night hang-out for locals before the curfew was enacted, witnesses said.

    Fischer has ordered the Kentucky State Police to investigate the incident.

    Fischer put the city under curfew in response to violent protests that had broken out over Taylor's death. The EMT was killed in March during a police raid on her home as part of a larger narcotics investigation. No drugs were found in Taylor's home.

    Police busted down the door to Taylor's home on March 13. Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who was in the home at the time, fired at the intruders and later said he did not realize that they were police officers.

    Walker said that the officer did not announce themselves prior to busting down Taylor's door, which the officers dispute. Walker was charged with injuring a police officer, but the charges were later dropped.

    Protests over Taylor's death turned violent on Thursday night and early Friday morning after someone shot multiple times into a crowd of protesters, wounding at least seven. No police discharged their weapon during the incident, officials said.

    "I feel the community's frustration, the anger, the fear, but tonight's violence and destruction is not the way to solve it," Fischer said after the incident. "Gunfire and vandalism does not advance our cause and it cannot be tolerated."