Dozens of police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, walked out of a roll call meeting Wednesday in a protest of the appearance of Mayor Greg Fischer following a week of riots over the death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis and a black woman shot and killed inside her apartment in Louisville.
The Louisville Courier Journal said it had obtained a video showing streams of officers and detectives file past Fischer wordlessly as he stood in the middle of a large room.
"They feel completely unsupported and disrespected by this administration," said local Fraternal Order of Police President Ryan Nichols, who was not present at the meeting. "They feel whatever he was going to say would have been nothing more than lip service, and he does not care about them at all."
Ryan said the walkout was an unplanned response to Fischer’s appearance.
Riots have erupted in Louisville following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Demonstrators in Louisville have combined protests about Floyd’s death with that of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police on March 13.
Floyd died after being arrested for using a counterfeit $20 bill and was seen in a widely distributed video being restrained face down next to a police cruiser by a white officer who has his knee on Floyd's neck. Taylor was killed when police entered her home after midnight with a “no-knock” warrant in a drug investigation.
Police said Taylor’s boyfriend fired at cops first, resulting in an exchange of gunfire that killed Taylor.
Louisville police have used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse rioters and protestors in response to what they said was a fusillade of bricks, leaf blowers, fireworks and gasoline/alcohol bombs.
LMPD's Administrative Services Division head Maj. David Allen said Tuesday that some rioters had thrown jars with "gasoline in them, urine (and) a mixture with vomit in it" at officers, Fox News reported.
Interim Chief Robert Schroeder said a SWAT vehicle took fire during overnight protests.
"We're deep into multiple days of rioting and violence ... and they're working in treacherous conditions," Nichols said. "And this is the first opportunity that the leader of our city and this police department has given them to address them?"
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