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Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CoachellaBeyoncé is demanding justice for Breonna Taylor.
In a powerful letter posted to the 38-year-old singer’s website on Sunday, she urged Kentucky’s Attorney General Daniel Cameron to bring charges against Louisville Metro Police Department officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove, the responding officers allegedly responsible for the shooting death of Taylor while she slept in her home in March.
“It has now been over three months since members of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) killed Breonna Taylor. Plainclothes officers with a ‘no-knock’ warrant forced their way into her apartment, where she was asleep and unarmed. Moments later, the officer fired over twenty shots into Breonna Taylor’s home, striking her at least eight times,” the letter began.
“Three months have passed — and zero arrests have been made, and no officers have been fired,” the mother of three added referencing Mattingly, Hankison, and Cosgrove, who have been placed on administrative reassignment.
Beyoncé then requested three actions that she would like to see carried out by the Attorney General’s office: charge the officers involved, “commit to transparency during the investigation,” and an investigation into the LMPD’s response to Taylor’s death.
“Don’t let this case fall into the pattern of no action after a terrible tragedy,” she wrote in closing. “With every death of a Black person at the hands of the police, there are two real tragedies: the death itself, and the inaction and delays that follow it. This is your chance to end that pattern.”
“Take swift and decisive action in charging the officers,” she added. “The next months cannot look like the last three.”
