Annelise Diamond and her partner James Conti want justice for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and others who have died at the hands of police in America. Photo supplied.Escalating protests may well strike fear into the hearts of Americans, but that fear is no different to what many feel on a daily basis.

So says Annelise Diamond of Ashburton, who is currently living in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States.

African Americans were used to being scared of being unfairly detained and ill-treated, and the recent killing of George Floyd was a case in point.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Diamond and her partner James Conti have penned onto a billboard, along with “Justice for Bre”.

The first is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter From The Birmingham Jail, written after the civil rights activist was imprisoned following a peaceful protest in 1963.

The second refers to the Louisville shooting of emergency medical care worker Breonna Taylor in March as police executed a search warrant.

Diamond said she was proud to display the signs in her vehicle as she drove around Louisville, and believed it was important to support the protests.

“We are definitely not keeping silent,” she said.

Diamond said the couple were soon to be back in New Zealand, and she was proud of the fact protests had been held throughout her home country in support of the cause on Monday.

“I think the American justice system is broken, and it needs to be rebuilt,” she said.

The situation in Louisville had already been tense following Taylor’s death, and the death of Floyd had only made things worse.

Yesterday the situation was continuing to escalate, and she saw a military vehicle driving down the road and heard helicopters overhead.

And news had just come through of the Louisville Metro Police Chief being relieved of duty after it was revealed officers involved in a fatal shooting at protests on Monday had not activated their body cameras.

She believed protestors had mainly been peaceful, and were abiding by a 9pm curfew, however, police had been inflammatory.

“It’s not a ‘please go back home’, it’s like ‘I’m going to throw tear gas in your face until you turn the corner’.

“They are being quite violent towards the general public.”

Diamond said she had been talking to her American friends and they had remarked on how the things they were seeing around them was just like episodes from their history text books at high school, particularly the hard-line reaction to the Birmingham peaceful protests in 1963 led by King.

By Susan Sandys © The Ashburton Guardian - 3 June 2020