Breonna Taylor March Shuts Down Whalley Ave | Thomas Breen New Haven Independent

Thomas Breen photos Protest dance party breaks out at Whalley and Sherman.

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https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/breonna_taylor_march/

Two dozen young, Black women jumped and danced and sang in the middle of the intersection of Whalley Avenue and Sherman Avenue as several hundred fellow protesters sat in the street and blocked traffic on all sides.

“Black women matter!” the group cheered, a portrait of Breonna Taylor held aloft nearby. “Black women matter!”

That spontaneous, cathartic 10-minute dance party came more than two hours into a Thursday evening rally organized by Black Lives Matter New Haven in honor of Taylor.

Taking place well after the sun had set, with cars honking—some in frustration, some in support—all around the island of protesters, the moment represented the emotional climax of four-hour action filled with grief, outrage, joy, indignation, and an intensely political thirst for justice.

The catalyst for Thursday’s march was a Kentucky grand jury’s decision the day before to not charge the officers who shot and killed Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, in her Louisville home in March during a botched drug raid. The only indictment the grand jury did hand down was a charge of wanton endangerment against a now-former detective who shot into Taylor’s neighboring apartments. The grand jury decision has sparked demonstrations throughout the country.

Thursday’s demonstration in New Haven brought together roughly 300 people to the Green—and then into the streets, for three-and-a-half hours of marching and mourning and chanting and blocking of traffic.

Read the full article at https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/breonna_taylor_march/