Kentucky AG criticizes Megan Thee Stallion and Ben Crump after Breonna Taylor case reaction
CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 10/6/2020, 1:11 p.m.
By Elizabeth Joseph and Eric Levenson, CNN
(CNN) -- Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron dismissed calls for a special prosecutor to investigate Breonna Taylor's death and rebuked his critics in an interview with "Fox and Friends" on Tuesday morning.
Much of his ire was directed at Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney who represents Taylor's family.
"This is the Ben Crump model," Cameron said on Fox.
"He goes into a city, creates a narrative, cherry picks facts to establish, to prove that narrative, creates chaos in a community, misrepresents the facts, and then he leaves with his money, and then asks the community to pick up the pieces," he said. "It is terribly offensive on his part to push such narratives, such falsehoods."
Cameron, a Black Republican who spoke at the Republican National Convention, also took issue with rap star Megan Thee Stallion's performance on "Saturday Night Live."
During the show, she played an audio clip from activist Tamika Mallory saying, "Daniel Cameron is no different than the sellout Negroes that sold our people into slavery."
"The fact that someone would get on national television and make disparaging comments about me because I'm simply trying to do my job is disgusting," Cameron said, incorrectly attributing the comments to the rapper herself.
He said those type of comments are "something that I've had to experience, because I'm a Black Republican, because I stand up for truth and justice as opposed to giving into a mob mentality," he said.
Cameron further claimed that the comments showed her intolerance and hypocrisy.
"You see a lot of that from the left about being tolerant, but what you saw there is inconsistent with tolerance," he added.
The partisan culture war criticisms come two weeks after a grand jury indicted former Louisville Metro Police Department detective Brett Hankison for first-degree wanton endangerment in connection with Taylor's death. Taylor, 26, was shot and killed by police in her home during a botched drug investigation.
Hankison was charged for "wantonly and blindly" firing at her apartment but not was not charged with killing Taylor. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Lonita Baker, an attorney for Taylor's family, criticized Cameron's comments in a statement to CNN.
"It's unfortunate that Daniel Cameron has referred to seeking justice for victims of police brutality as the 'Crump Playbook.' He can't respond to the real criticism that he circumvented the grand jury process but yet he makes time to respond to Megan Thee Stallion's Saturday Night Live performance," Baker said.
"I'd much rather be fighting for justice for Breonna Taylor by demanding a prosecutor who will uphold Kentucky laws for all citizens rather than one who seeks to only protect his own political agenda. Daniel Cameron's playbook is the real issue that needs to be discussed."
Cameron argues police shooting was justified
Cameron led the investigation and presented the case to the grand jury. He said that two other officers who shot at Taylor, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Det. Myles Cosgrove, were justified in their use of force because Taylor's boyfriend fired at them first, hitting Mattingly.
Taylor's family, family attorneys, and demonstrators have criticized the wanton endangerment charges and said they wanted all of the officers involved to be arrested on more serious charges. Crump called for a new independent prosecutor in Taylor's case and has pushed Kentucky's governor to appoint a new grand jury.
Last week, an attorney representing a grand juror suggested Cameron may have misrepresented to the public the case presented to the panel. That hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday, and the judge overseeing it has given Cameron's office until Wednesday to respond to the juror's motion.
But in his Tuesday interview, Cameron reiterated that his office presented information to the Jefferson County Circuit Court grand jury "in a manner consistent with what the facts and the law are," and referred to Crump's comments as "wild accusations" and asking for "ridiculous things."
Breonna Taylor's death is a tragedy, "but sometimes our criminal law is inadequate to respond to tragedy," he said.
Last week a grand juror who heard the Kentucky Attorney General's office's presentation filed a lawsuit seeking permission to speak freely about their experiences in the grand jury room and for the release of grand jury recordings and transcripts.