Louisville Police, National Guard Return Fire At Protesters, 1 Dead

A man was fatally shot during a protest in Louisville, Kentucky after the police and the Kentucky National Guard “returned fire” to clear the crowd on Monday (June 1).

According to NBC News, Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad said that his officers and the National Guard were sent to dispel a crowd at a parking lot around 12:15 AM.

“Officers and soldiers began to clear the lot and at some point were shot at,” Conrad said in a statement. “Both LMPD and national guard members returned fire, we have one man dead at scene.

The same report said that Conrad did not specify who fired the shot that killed the victim and the authorities have not released any information on him.

Louisville police officers said that they are currently collecting videos of the incident and interviewing “persons of interest”.

NBC Louisville affiliate WAVE reported that more than 40 people were arrested on Sunday which was the fourth consecutive night of protests in Louisville.

The unnamed man was one of the many casualties of the nationwide protests representing the black community following the death of African American citizen George Floyd, 46, allegedly in the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and three other officers in the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minnesota on May 25.

The city also expressed their outrage over the death of Louisville resident, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman whom Louisville officers killed in her home in March while they were conducting a “no-knock” warrant on her former boyfriend.

Seven people were shot last Thursday in the city when a protest turned violent, NBC News reported, but Police Sergeant Lamont Washington claimed that the officers were not involved in the shooting at the time.

Kaitlin Rust, a reported for WAVE who was covering a protest was captured on air yelling that she was “getting shot” by rubber bullets.