Oprah honors Breonna Taylor with massive billboard campaign demanding the cops who killed her are arrested and charged
'If you turn a blind eye to racism, you become an accomplice to it,' a quote from Winfrey reads
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oprah Winfrey has launched a billboard campaign in Louisville, Ky., demanding the police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged.
"O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine" announced it began erecting 26 billboards -- one for each year of Taylor's life -- across the city on Thursday to bring attention to the case.
"Demand that the police involved in killing Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged," the billboard says.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The signs include an image of Taylor that will be featured on the September cover of the magazine, along with a quote from Winfrey herself that reads: "If you turn a blind eye to racism, you become an accomplice to it."
A billboard sponsored by O, The Oprah Magazine, is on display with a photo of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY. Twenty-six billboards are going up across Louisville, demanding that the police officers involved in Taylor's death be arrested and charged. (AP Photo/Dylan T. Lovan)
The cover will be the first time in the magazine's 20-year history that anyone other than Winfrey will be featured.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice," Oprah said in the announcement. "And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of O magazine. I cry for justice in her name. The September issue honors her and every other Black woman whose life has been taken too soon."
The billboards also direct people to Until Freedom, a social justice organization that recently relocated its operations to Louisville to advocate for Taylor's case.
The group thanked Winfrey and the magazine in an Instagram post for "using your platform to support the movement and demand justice" for Taylor.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Taylor, an emergency medical technician who was studying to become a nurse, and resident of Louisville, was shot eight times in her apartment during a no-knock warrant executed by police. Plainclothes officers entered the unit on March 13 to look for illegal drugs, which were never found, and to search for a male suspect who didn't live in the apartment complex.
The suspect had already been detained by authorities prior to the execution of the warrant.
Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in bed around midnight when the officers banged on her door. The officers used a battering ram to enter the apartment, at which point Walker, a licensed gun owner, fired a warning shot.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The officers returned fire with more than 20 rounds.
A billboard sponsored by O, The Oprah Magazine, is on display with a photo of Breonna Taylor. (AP Photo/Dylan T. Lovan)
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One of three officers involved in the shooting, Brett Hankison, has been fired from the police force, but none have been criminally charged.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Taylor's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department