Dozens of Louisville police officers walked out on the city’s mayor due to frustrations with his leadership following protests over the death of Breonna Taylor.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer can be seen in a video standing in the middle of a large room as officers file out of the room without speaking, according to Louisville Courier Journal. The incident happened Wednesday at a roll call.
“They feel completely unsupported and disrespected by this administration,” said Ryan Nichols, the president of the local Fraternal Order of Police. “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.”
Nichols added that many officers feel the mayor has not supported them enough as anti-police sentiments soar amid protests and in some cases outbursts of violence that have unfolded throughout the city, state, and country.
“We’re deep into multiple days of rioting and violence … and they’re working in treacherous conditions,” Nichols added. “And this is the first opportunity that the leader of our city and this police department has given them to address them?”
Louisville police have used pepper bullets and tear gas to break up some of the protests, which they say threatened them with potential weapons, including jars full of gasoline, urine, and vomit. The protesters are demanding justice for Taylor, a 26-year-old black emergency medical technician who was shot and killed in March after officers forced their way inside her apartment while executing a search warrant in a narcotics investigation.
The Kentucky State Fraternal Order of Police’s Twitter account posted several tweets criticizing the mayor, but they were later deleted.
“Maybe @louisvillemayor should put out an RFP to review his corrupt administration that cares about NO ONE in this city,” one of the tweets said. “@louisvillemayor may pretend to be compassionate, but he’s allowing good people of all races and neighborhoods to be victimized by violent criminals.”
Here a few screenshots of the now-deleted tweets from @KYFOP614 this afternoon directed at @louisvillemayor and #loumedia: pic.twitter.com/ihokaLwus0
— Ben Tobin (@TobinBen) June 3, 2020
“They are frustrated, and some of them expressed that frustration today,” Fischer said in his statement following the walkout. “I absolutely respect that. That doesn’t change my appreciation of the work they are doing, as I’ve expressed time and again. They have a very difficult job.”
