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Arrested While Protesting Breonna Taylor's Death, Minneapolis NAACP President Reflects On 'Fighting For Justice'

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- On Friday afternoon, a Kentucky prosecutor decided to drop a felony charge against a young Minneapolis attorney and civil rights leader.

Leslie Redmond is the president of the Minneapolis NAACP.  She went to Kentucky to protest the death of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in Louisville on March 13th.

As she explained to WCCO, while in Kentucky, Redmond experienced something she never had before.

"I didn't want to make the trip to Kentucky, I felt like I had to make the trip to Kentucky," she said after she returned.

A 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was in her Louisville home when police shot her while serving a warrant.

For Redmond, who is 28, this was personal.

"I thought about how my own Mom would feel if I were murdered in my own home," she said.

So she traveled south to join several dozen protestors on the lawn of a Kentucky prosecutor to ask for the officers to be held accountable.

Then Leslie herself was penalized, arrested on a felony charge.

"I never even had a speeding ticket, never less a mugshot.  So to have to throw away my clean record I've worked my whole life on.  Yet it still feels like a small sacrifice because it wasn't my life," she said.

She says she remembers and appreciates how Breonna's mother came to Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd's death. And says Breonna needs justice, too.

"It was vital to me as a Black woman that I stood in solidarity with Black women because I'm constantly standing up for Black men and I don't think that our brutality is always well documented," she said.

The felony charge is dropped, but Leslie - an attorney and MBA grad - now has a record but says she's in good company. " If you look at it, a lot of saints, civil rights activists had to have mugshots, had to go to prison. Fighting for justice and what's right don't always feel good."

Leslie is due in court in Kentucky in October. She faces two misdemeanor charges.

One of the officers in the Breonna Taylor case has been fired. It's not clear what will happen to the others involved.

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