‘Her life was taken’: Harris speaks on the case of Breonna Taylor

Kamala Harris on Wednesday during the Vice Presidential Debate said that Breonna Taylor’s ‘life was taken.’

Video Transcript

SUSAN PAGE: Senator Harris, in the case of Breonna Taylor, was justice done. You have two minutes.

KAMALA HARRIS: I don't believe so, and I've talked with Breonna's mother, Tamika Palmer and her family, and her family deserves justice. She was a beautiful young woman. She had as her life goal to become a nurse, and she wanted to become an EMT to first learn what's going on out on the street so she could then become a nurse and save lives. And her life was taken, unjustifiably and tragically and violently.

And it just-- it brings me to, you know, the eight minutes and 46 seconds that America witnessed during which an American man was tortured and killed under the knee of an armed, uniformed police officer. And people around our country of every race, of every age, of every gender, perfect strangers to each other, marched shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, fighting for us to finally achieve that ideal of equal justice under law.

And I was a part of those peaceful protests, and I believe strongly that, first of all, we are never going to condone violence but we always must fight for the values that we hold dear, including the fight to achieve our ideals. And that's why Joe Biden and I have said on this subject-- look, and I'm a former career prosecutor. I know what I'm talking about. Bad cops are bad for good cops.

We need reform of our policing in America and our criminal justice system, which is why Joe and I will immediately ban chokeholds and carotid holds. George Floyd would be alive today if we did that. We will require a national registry for police officers who break the law. We will, on the issue of criminal justice reform, get rid of private prisons and cash bail, and we will decriminalize marijuana, and we will--

SUSAN PAGE: Thank you, Senator Harris.

KAMALA HARRIS: We will expunge the records of those who have been convicted of marijuana. This is the time for leadership on a tragic, tragic issue of unarmed black people in America being killed.

SUSAN PAGE: Thank you, Senator Harris.