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Blazers' CJ McCollum Discusses Call with Breonna Taylor's Mom Tamika Palmer
July 21, 2020
Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum said he was recently part of a Zoom call with the mother of Breonna Taylor, Tamika Palmer, who gave him updates on the lack of progress in the investigation into her daughter's death.
"I want to go on record saying [Kentucky Attorney General] Daniel Cameron is in position to arrest the cops who are responsible for killing Breonna Taylor and still has not done that...so we want to continue to uplift people like Breonna Taylor who are victims and haven't received the proper justice they are due," McCollum told reporters Tuesday.
Taylor, an unarmed emergency medical technician, was killed March 13 when Louisville police officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove executed a no-knock warrant on her apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.
The officers executed the warrant in plain clothes, and Walker believed they were intruders, firing a "warning" shot at the door. Police responded by unloading more than 20 rounds into the apartment, shooting Taylor eight times and killing her. No drugs were found in the apartment. Police were searching Taylor's residence because of her past association with a suspected drug dealer, who was not present at the home.
Attorneys representing Taylor's family in a civil suit say officers falsified information to receive a no-knock warrant on Taylor's apartment. The City of Louisville has since banned no-knock warrants in Taylor's honor but has not charged any of the officers involved with a crime. Hankison is the only one of the three officers to lose his job.
WNBA players will wear Taylor's name on the back of their jerseys during the 2020 season. McCollum said it's the responsibility of NBA players, who pushed for the league to make social justice messaging part of the league's restart in Orlando, to make basketball "secondary" to being proactive in the community.
