Lamar Jackson on Breonna Taylor Decision: 'It's Crazy We Never Get Justice'

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson said he does not feel as if Black people get justice in the United States after no officers were charged for their roles in the killing of Breonna Taylor.

"It's crazy we never get justice for serious things. ... We're in America, where it should be freedom of speech, the land of the free. But I don't really feel like it's been that way for us Black people sometimes," the reigning NFL MVP told reporters Thursday.

The only charges brought by the grand jury Wednesday were against former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison, who was charged with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. The charges were not related to the killing of Taylor but rather because bullets from Hankison's weapon went through the wall of Taylor's apartment and into an occupied neighboring residence.

Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was shot and killed March 13 by police executing a no-knock search warrant of her apartment. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said the officers were in plain clothes and did not identify themselves, leading him to believe them to be intruders. Walker fired a warning shot at the officers, injuring one, and police responded by firing several rounds into Taylor's apartment, hitting her five times.

Taylor was asleep when the officers entered the apartment just before 1 a.m. Police found no illegal activity in the residence. Taylor's home was being searched as part of an ongoing investigation into her ex-boyfriend, an alleged drug dealer, but was found to have no involvement in his case.

The city of Louisville has since banned no-knock warrants. The city also agreed to a $12 million settlement in a civil lawsuit Taylor's family filed after her death—one of several police-involved killings of Black people this year resulting in national unrest and an ongoing conversation around police brutality and racism. 

Protests of the grand jury decision have been ongoing since early Wednesday. Two officers were shot on the first night of protests.