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LeBron James Has Imagined Breonna Taylor Was His Sister Or Mother

James said he's imagined he was inside Taylor's apartment on March 13 when she was shot by three Louisville police officers who were targeting two other people.

LeBron James says he's imagined what Breonna Taylor must have felt in the moments leading up to her death. 

"I kinda put myself in that household, with them [police officers] coming into the house, a place where they shouldn’t have been in the first place, and then open firing and killing an innocent woman who had a bright future," James said in a video conference on Zoom on Tuesday. "So I think about if it was a sister of mine. If it was my mother. If it was an auntie of mine. If it was a friend of mine."

Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman, was shot by three Louisville police officers who were targeting two other people on March 13 in her own apartment in what's being called a botched drug-warrant execution. The shooting is under investigation by the FBI and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. So far, none of the officers have been charged or arrested.

After the Lakers’ scrimmage against Dallas last Thursday, James said he wanted to see the officers arrested, adding, "It’s fortunate that we had the George Floyd video to see it. I mean, is that what we need to see a video of Breonna being killed to realize how bad the situation is?"

James reiterated that point after the Lakers practiced Tuesday.  

"You think about the landscape of what we’re in right now where police brutality is going on," James said. "It’s happened so much over the last -- I wanna say decade -- because now we’ve seen it because of camera phones and videos and things of that nature. But we know it’s always happened. You can take it back to the 90s with the Rodney King beating, and that was over a video camera. But because of social media and because of the phones, everything is so rapid fire and instant, you’re able to see it. And I don’t know if it was the last time I did a presser or before that [when I asked], what, do we need to see a video of her getting killed for something to actually happen with the officers who committed this crime?"

James has long used his power and influence to fight for social justice. After using nearly his entire 14-minute media session Thursday to talk about systemic racism and the need for change, he acknowledged Tuesday that he's also reached out to people in Kentucky who are at the center of the tragedy. 

"I’ve spoken to a lot of people in Louisville, and they’re irate," James said. "They’re sad, they’re angry, they’re disgusted about what’s going on and the timetable of what’s happening. So I feel for her mother, I feel for her family, and anyone that had any association with her in her community. Her coworkers that probably saw her every day and seen her smile, and seen her talk about not only her presence in the world, but also her future. It’s a life that’s gone too soon out of nonsense, and out of just a pure act of violence."

James declined to say who he's spoken to specifically, but added that the situation is something that has deeply affected him and his family. 

"I can’t really tell you my source of who I’ve been talking to," he said. "I really don’t want to bring their name up. They wanna stay anonymous and I’m going to keep it that way. But I got some friends and family that’s in Louisville and it’s not that far from Akron, Ohio, to be honest. So we’ve always kinda had people that go through Kentucky, go through Louisville, go through Lexington and things of that nature. They just, they want help. They want help on getting justice for such a queen in Breonna. So we’ll continue to put the pressure, and hopefully the attorney general down there will see what’s going on, and do what’s right."