-No justice! -No peace!
-This moment is a hopeful one in that one woman's loss of life
is now part of our national conversation.
-Say her name! -Breonna Taylor!
-Her name can be heard in protests across the country,
a rallying cry to bring attention
to black women killed by police.
-I think it's the happenstance, frankly,
that Breonna Taylor was killed within the same season
of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.
The fact of the matter is, though,
that black women as young as 7 and
and as old as 93 have been killed by the police.
And many times, their deaths are not marked by protests,
by reporting, and by reform.
-Fatal police encounters disproportionately
affect black men.
But women are also victims,
and their stories are rarely heard.
During a late-night raid in March,
police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor inside her home
while executing a no-knock warrant.
Her death took months to gain national attention,
even as anger grew over the killings
of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd,
another reminder that black women killed by police
often do not receive the same level of national attention.
-When my daughter, India Kager, was murdered
by Virginia Beach Police SWAT, there was no outrage.
There was no upswell.
Of a Navy vet being killed,
an innocent mother, there was none.
As a matter of fact, most people still to this day
do not know my daughter's story.
-In 2015, Virginia Beach police fired 30 rounds
in less than 15 seconds into a car, killing India Kager
and her baby's father, Angelo Perry.
Their 4-month-old son was in the back seat and survived.
-They murdered my daughter and Angelo Perry in cold blood,
knowing that Roman was in the back seat of the car,
knowing that India was innocent
and she was not part of the investigation,
knowing that there was no arrest warrant out for Angelo Perry,
knowing that they were taking the life
of an innocent black woman.
-Perry had recently been released from prison
after serving time for shooting someone in the back.
Officers said they had credible evidence
that Perry was about to commit a violent crime
that September night.
The Virginia police chief said officers had no choice
but to fire back when he opened fire.
-Took the murder of George Floyd for people
to really start now paying attention.
And I ask, what was different about George Floyd's murder
than was about my daughter?
There's video for her, too.
-The video was released publicly,
but there was no national outrage,
no social media hashtags.
-This innocent, soft-spoken woman
had a full life and beautiful sons
and a promising future.
And it was stolen from her because people looked on her
and saw a black woman not deserving to live.
I wanted them to say her name too.
-None of the officers were fired
or criminally charged after an investigation said
the shooting was justified.
However, Kager's family filed a wrongful death civil suit.
Jurors found two of the four police officers negligent
for their roles in the shooting and awarded the family $800,000.
Since 2015, more than 245 women have been shot and killed
by police across the country, including India Kager.
-So for a long time, there was a worry
that if we talked about what was happening to women,
it would dilute the focus or distract from the discussion
about what was happening to black men.
Yes, black men are being brutalized by the police,
but so are black women and black children.
And so I think when we have that discussion, right, it amplifies.
It doesn't detract.
It shows yes, what we're talking about
is really important and it's serious.
It impacts the entire community, not just black men.
-Tanisha Anderson was 37 years old
when she was killed during a police encounter
in front of her home in Cleveland in 2014.
Her family had called 911.
They needed help getting her to the hospital for treatment,
as she suffered a breakdown from her bipolar disorder.
They were expecting an ambulance,
but police showed up instead.
-The only time that she came in contact with law enforcement
was that night that she said,
"No, I don't want to go to the hospital."
And this one particular cop decided, "Oh, you're going."
And he picked her up and slammed her on the ground.
-Her family explained that Anderson was claustrophobic
and tried to tell police why she was refusing
to go into the back seat of the cop car.
-They wasn't listening to what anybody had to say.
They were just looking at what they seen.
They seen somebody going sporadic.
I didn't even think they cared enough to know
if she was bipolar or anything.
They just was like, "She's going crazy.
Get her down."
-Anderson's daughter, just 16 years old at the time,
watched from the window as an officer
slammed her mother to the ground
and held her down with a knee on her back.
-I'm still just confused.
I don't know why they showing up,
why's she on the ground, why's she not moving,
what's going on.
And then they put her on the gurney.
And when they put her on the gurney
and I seen her arms fall out like this,
I'm like, "She's dead."
I knew she was dead. That was it.
-She wasn't under arrest.
She hadn't committed a crime.
She didn't like small, confined places.
If they had just listened to the family, this whole thing --
we wouldn't be sitting here talking about it today.
-The medical examiner's office ruled Anderson's death
a homicide from physical restraint,
but a later independent review said
she likely died from a cardiac event.
Anderson's family disputes this.
Still, her case drew little attention outside of Cleveland.
-Justice for who? -Tanisha Anderson!
-When do we want it? -There were a lot of protestors
who came to the house who also did protesting
at the corner of Ansel Road -- 92nd and Ansel.
They stopped cars in the middle of the street, you know?
They rooted for her.
But it died out really fast.
-An investigation into what happened lasted three years,
moving from agency to agency,
until a grand jury ultimately declined
to bring charges against either officers.
After filing a wrongful death lawsuit,
the family reached a $2.
25 million settlement with the city of Cleveland.
-It was torture.
But my sister had hope.
She never hung her belief in a settlement.
She hung her belief in God
and she hung her belief in the justice system.
And it failed her.
It failed her.
-The reason why it's important that we never are silenced
in amplifying Tanisha Anderson and my baby India Kager
is because if we don't say their names, no one does.
-In the organizing around anti-black police violence,
the idea about saying "her" is to emphasize the fact
that of the many bodies
that are piling up behind police violence,
some of those bodies are women.
How can we make sure that we include them?
Well, one way to do it is to emphasize
those whose names have not been heard before.
-We have to speak out for our daughters
and the countless black women who have been forgotten.
We refuse to allow them to be forgotten.
And people need to know black women are killed by police too.