Louisville in Kentucky is bracing for a second night of unrest after two policemen were shot and wounded during protests over a grand jury's decision not to bring homicide charges against any of the officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.
The two police officers shot on Wednesday were expected to recover, and a suspect was taken into custody, one of 127 people arrested during the protests, most for curfew violations or disobeying failure-to-disperse orders.
Hundreds of demonstrators returned to the streets of Kentucky's largest city on Thursday evening, many with fists raised in the air as they chanted Taylor's name and "No justice, no peace," while marching past a National Guard checkpoint in the downtown area.
The protests began on Wednesday just after the grand jury decided that none of the three white officers who collectively fired 32 gunshots as they stormed Taylor's apartment would be charged with causing her death.
One of the officers was indicted on charges of endangering Taylor's neighbours with several stray bullets he fired into an adjacent apartment during the ill-fated March 13 raid, carried out as part of a narcotics investigation. The other two officers were not charged.
Taylor, 26, an African American emergency medical technician and aspiring nurse, was struck by six bullets moments after she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were roused from bed in the commotion of the raid. Walker exchanged gunfire with the police.
The grand jury decision, announced by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, was immediately denounced by civil rights advocates as the latest miscarriage of justice in a US law enforcement system corrupted by racial inequity.
Protests in Louisville on Wednesday turned violent around nightfall as police in riot gear ordered demonstrators to clear the streets after several fires were set in rubbish cans near a downtown park and outside the city's Hall of Justice.
Protests also flared on Wednesday in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington, Oakland, Philadelphia, Denver and Portland, Oregon. In Seattle, police said 13 people were arrested for property destruction, resisting arrest, failure to disperse and assault on an officer.
In Buffalo, New York, a pickup truck sped into a group of demonstrators, injuring one person, video on social media showed.
The demonstrations were the latest in a wave to grip the country over excessive police force and racial injustice in the months following the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man arrested for a non-violent offence, when a white Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck.
In addition to largely orderly anti-racism protesters, the demonstrations have drawn a volatile mix of armed, right-wing militias and anarchists.
Taylor's death initially drew little national attention but was thrust into prominence after Floyd's death and with the help of celebrities such as Hollywood stars and basketball great LeBron James.
Demonstrations under the banner "Say her name!" have been held in Louisville for months.
Australian Associated Press
