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Naomi Osaka wears Breonna Taylor mask and plans to highlight more names at U.S. Open

01 September 2020
 Dan Ackermann

Tennis star Naomi Osaka said Monday night after wearing a face covering bearing the name "Breonna Taylor" during her win over fellow Japanese player Misaki Doi that she plans to wear more masks with other names during the U.S. Open this tournament.

What she's saying: "I have seven," Osaka said after the match. "It's quite sad that seven masks isn’t enough for the amount of names. So hopefully I’ll get to the final and you can see all of them."

.@naomiosaka walked out in a Breonna Taylor mask for her night match at Arthur Ashe stadium.#USOpenpic.twitter.com/Ubxwst54kl

— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 1, 2020

The big picture: Osaka withdrew from her semi-final match at the Western & Southern Open last week following the shooting of Jacob Blake to protest racial injustice and police brutality, causing the tournament to pause all games.

  • "[B]efore I am an athlete, I am a black woman. And as a black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis," she said in a Twitter post explaining her decision.
  • "I don't expect anything drastic to happen with me not playing, but if I can get a conversation started in a majority white sport I consider that a step in the right direction. Watching the continued genocide of Black people at the hand of the police is honestly making me sick to my stomach."

Of note: Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) said Sunday his office had not decided whether to charge the officers involved in the March 13 fatal shooting of Taylor in Louisville. She was shot at least eight times while sleeping after officers investigating men they believed to be selling drugs nearby entered her home. Her death sparked protests in the city and across the U.S.

Go deeper: More sports leagues join Black Lives Matter protests

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.