Failed Republican candidate for Governor of Kentucky, Attorney General Daniel Cameron speaks to the press during a campaign event on November 6, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky. | Source: Michael Swensen / Getty
One of the most reviled figures surrounding the botched police raid that led to the killing of Breonna Taylor was officially rejected on Tuesday by Kentucky voters who decided instead to re-elect the incumbent Democratic governor.
The Donald Trump-endorsed, anti-abortion Republican gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron was projected to lose the race by NBC News after Gov. Andy Beshear had secured more than 50% of the vote. Cameron would have been Kentucky’s first Black governor had he won.
The election results leave Cameron, 37, out of a job once Republican Russell Coleman — who defeated Democrat Pamela Stevenson to be the next attorney general of Kentucky — is inaugurated in January. Stevenson would have been the state’s first Black woman attorney general.
Cameron notably declined to charge any of the Louisville police officers who were involved in the botched no-knock warrant raid of Breonna Taylor’s apartment in 2020. His decision not only sparked outrage in the community but also led to jurors publicly stating that Cameron’s team limited them in what charges they could consider, sparking claims that he intentionally sabotaged any chance at justice for the 26-year-old Black woman.
That lack of charges, in turn, prompted Tamika Mallory, who was on the front lines of protests demanding justice for Taylor, to call Cameron a “sellout” based on his clear and deliberate actions.
“I thought about the ships that went into Fort Monroe and Jamestown with our people on them over 400 years ago and how there were also Black men on those ships that were responsible for bringing our people over here,” Mallory said after a grand jury indicted just one the three cops who shot at Taylor in a charge that did not hold him accountable for the preventable police violence. “Daniel Cameron is no different than the sellout negroes that sold our people into slavery and helped White men to capture our people, to abuse them, and to traffic them while our women were raped, while our men were raped by savages.”
In August, the U.S. Department of Justice did what Cameron would not and indicted two former Louisville police officers and one current Louisville cop who were all involved in the shooting death of Taylor on March 13, 2020.
A little more than three months later, Kentucky voters made sure Cameron would not be elected governor.
Cameron’s career in politics is likely far from over.
Prior to his gubernatorial ambitions, Cameron was described in part by CNN as Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s “protégé, having served as the senator’s general counsel from 2015-2017.” He is also largely seen as McConnell’s eventual successor, a prospect that seems like it may happen sooner rather than later if the 81-year-old longtime Senator’s recent history is any indication.
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Op-Ed: Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron’s Evasion Of Minor Inquiry Disrespects Voters And Accountability
