Police put up police tape after the shooting. Reuters/ABC News.
A man who opened fire at a Breonna Taylor protest was a protester himself. ABC News. Steven Nelson Lopez was arrested for murder after he shot and killed a photographer and wounded another protester at a rally for Breonna Taylor, a woman who was shot and killed during a no-knock warrant. Lopez had previous attended the protests and had been arrested twice on rioting related charges. Police responded quickly and arrested Lopez but emergency medical personal were not able to save the photographer, Tyler Gerth.
Fox News reports that Lopez had been asked by organizers of the protests multiple times to leave due to his behavior at previous events. Additional armed people were at the event and police are trying to determine if anyone else fired shots. A counter protest apparently occurred earlier in the day by “American Freedom Fighters" but they had broken up long before the shooting occurred. This is the 2nd time a shooting has occurred in Louisville Kentucky during a Breonna Talyor protest, last may seven people were injured at another rally.
My Comment:
I decided to cover this story as many people online were blaming right-wing counter protesters for this shooting. The news media, outside of Fox News, is downplaying the fact that Lopez was a protester himself, and not a member of a right wing militia.
The video above shows the shooting itself, though it's fairly confusing. You can clearly see Lopez pulling out and aiming a handgun, but why he did so is a mystery. It's also difficult to tell if he was the only one shooting, though I'd be surprised if there was a second shooter. And also say that if there was a right wing militia group there then Lopez wouldn't have been alive to be arrested by the police. They wouldn't screw around if they were getting shot at, Lopez would have been ventilated.
I don't understand what the motive was in this case. There doesn't seem to be any reason for Lopez to pull out a gun and start firing. Without more context for the video it's hard to know if there was some event that caused Lopez to pull out his gun.
However, it does seem clear that Lopez was a bad person. If his behavior was so reprehensible that even the protesters didn't want him around than it's clear he was a trouble maker. The two arrests for rioting related offenses don't speak to his character either. One does wonder why he was out on the streets if he had been arrested previously? Shouldn't he have been in jail awaiting trial? Given how lenient the justice system has been to rioters and how reluctant they have been in keeping people in jail during the Coronavirus outbreak it's possible he was out for bad reasons. Had he been kept in jail Taylor Gerth would still be alive.
As for the Breonna Talyor case, I'm on record on being sympathetic. There is no reason why no-knock warrants should be a thing for all but the most violent criminals because this very reason. The chances of the police screwing up and getting the wrong house or the people there mistaking the cops for home intruders are too high.
With no-knock warrants now being banned and the officer who fired the shots getting fired I do have to wonder why the protests are still ongoing. The protesters have gotten most of what they want and I seriously doubt actual charges are coming for the cops. I think it's beyond time for these people to go home.
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