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BLM protesters who swarmed Rand Paul demanding acknowledgement of Breonna Taylor’s death, didn’t seem to know that, in introducing the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act, he did much more than simply ‘say her name.’

A crowd surrounded the Republican Senator and his police escort on Thursday, obstructing their exit from the Republican National Convention and even pushing an officer into the politician at one point. The protesters could be heard chanting “Say her name!” They were referring to the unprosecuted death of Breonna Taylor, a young black Kentucky woman fatally shot by plain-clothes police who entered her apartment during a “no-knock” search.

Rand Paul just got chased by a crowd back to his hotel, after leaving the White House from Trump’s Republican Party Nomination #DC#DCProtestspic.twitter.com/h1kPcZG1jh

However, the Kentucky congressman did, quite famously, “say the name” of his killed constituent when he introduced the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act in the Senate. The legislation, which was rejected, would have banned unannounced “no-knock” searches. Furthermore, it would have required law enforcement agents to notify a citizen before executing a search warrant.

The Republican politician is often considered a fringe member of his party for being an open libertarian and supporting criminal justice reforms. He even regularly partners-up with his supposed opposition, the Democrats, for this purpose.

Some political online commentators were therefore baffled as to why Paul had become a target of racial justice activists. Twitter users accused the protesters of focusing only on the Democrat versus Republican dichotomy instead of the issues’ substance.

Unfortunately, the level of political thought in this country is more so “Democrat vs Republican” at worst and “what are the policy positions of those running for president” at best.They aren’t people like us who are genuinely invested in politics and even political philosophy.

Mob shouting Breonna Taylor’s name at Rand Paul without knowing he literally wrote the Justice For Breonna Taylor act…

these people have no fucking idea what they are protesting besides the slight chance they might become a viral hit.

Another critic noted that the partisan conversation around criminal justice reform could be easily flipped nowadays. They pointed to the Democratic nominee for president being Joe Biden, author of the controversial 1994 crime bill, which is widely considered to have been a key contributor to the mass incarceration of black Americans.

Just think…there’s people out there who say they support criminal justice reform, but are voting for Joe Biden (author of the 1994 crime bill and supporter of qualified immunity) and hate Rand Paul (the guy who wrote the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act).

Some, however, remained unconvinced by Paul’s legislative record, remembering that he recently voted against a law that would have additionally criminalized racial hate crimes.

Paul prevented the Emmett Till Antilynching Act from passing the Senate in June. The Republican senator had previously explained his opposition to the bill by saying he was of the view that it might over-criminalize petty crimes and minor property damage by punishing them with years of jail time.

Since then, he has been accused of opposing criminal justice reform and even of being racist. This was speculated to have been the reason he was approached by the protesting crowd.

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