Authorities in Louisville, Ky., have charged Larynzo Johnson, 26, with 14 counts of wanton endangerment and two counts of assault on a police officer after two officers were shot during protests in the city, according to the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections.
Johnson was arrested Wednesday, booked Thursday morning, and is scheduled to be arraigned today, the department said.
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Demonstrations broke out in the city Wednesday after a grand jury decided not to bring charges against the police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor during a botched nighttime raid on her apartment in March. The grand jury instead indicted another officer involved in the raid for recklessly firing shots that entered a neighboring apartment.
That officer, Brett Hankison, a detective who has since been fired from the police force, plans to plead innocent to the charges in the indictment, three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree, according to his attorney, Stew Mathews. There is no date set yet for the arraignment, Mathews said, declining to comment further. Three other officers have been put on desk duty after Taylor's shooting.
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About 100 protesters gathered in downtown Little Rock late Thursday night, joining the ongoing protests nationwide.
The demonstrators marched from MacArthur Park to the Governor's Mansion where they chanted against the police shooting deaths of Black people in Little Rock and across the U.S.
Little Rock Police on Twitter said that they were monitoring the demonstration, which had been peaceful as of late Thursday.
Though protests in Louisville began peacefully Wednesday, officers later declared an unlawful assembly after the demonstrations became violent. Rioters set fires in garbage cans, several vehicles were damaged and stores were broken into.
Scores of people gathered Thursday night outside the First Unitarian Church and remained after a 9 p.m. curfew took hold. Police in riot gear were lined up on the opposite of an empty parking lot across the street from the side of the church.
Neither of the officers who were shot during the protests in Louisville suffered life-threatening injuries, Mayor Greg Fischer said at a news conference Thursday morning. He said that one of the officers, Maj. Aubrey Gregory, a commander, had been released from the hospital after treatment for a leg wound. The other officer, Robinson Desroches, was recovering from abdominal surgery, the mayor said.
"Many see Breonna Taylor's case as both the tragic death of a young woman, and the continuation of a long pattern of devaluation and violence that Black women and men face in our country, as they have historically," the mayor said. The question, he said, is: "What do we do with this pain?"
He added: "When any of us gives in to the temptation to channel anger into violence, we slow our progress."
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There were additional reports of injuries to police officers, including a sergeant who was struck by a protester's baton, and another who suffered a knee injury "while arresting a resisting individual," the chief said. Another officer was spit on, he said.
Last week, the city agreed to more policing changes as part of a settlement that included a $12 million payment to Taylor's family.
Information for this article was contributed by The New York Times; and by Dylan Lovan, Rebecca Reynolds Yonker, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Claire Galofaro, Bruce Schreiner, John Minchillo, Kevin Freking, Michael Balsamo, Aaron Morrison and Haleluya Hadero of The Associated Press; and by William Sanders of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
