Four protesters in Louisville, Kentucky, the city where Breonna Taylor was murdered by police, have been on a hunger strike since Monday July 20. They say that they will not stop until justice for Breonna is achieved. 

The protesters, Amira Bryant, Ari Maybe, Vincent Gonzalez and Tabin Ibershoff claimed that their plan is to restrict their consumption to vitamin supplements, water, green tea and black coffee only. 

They are livestreaming the strike on Facebook via their page Hunger Strikers for Breonna. 

Bryant told The Courier-Journal that the hunger strike is a continuation of protesting efforts stemming from the murder of George Floyd in late May. 

Following his wrongful death, protests spread throughout the country and often attracted violent responses from police. Bryant said that is one of the reasons she and other activists decided to do a hunger strike. 

For many protesters at this point, control is the most important. 

When a group of protesters held a sit-in on the lawn of Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s lawn demanding justice for Taylor on July 14, 87 of them were arrested, and some received felony charges. 

“It’s not like a sit-in, where we can be arrested. It’s not like a protest, where there’s a beginning and an end. We control the beginning, the end and the entire narrative,” Bryant explained. 

Despite the fact that three officers, Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove killed Taylor while she was sleeping in her home, only Hankinson was fired. None of the officers have been arrested. 

The strikers said in the caption of Wednesday’s livestream that they will restrict all calorie intake until the officers who murdered Breonna Taylor are “fired and stripped of their pensions.” 

They also invited others to join them in any way that is available to them, whether it be through fasting or other types of abstinence. 

The strikers have demands. They announced Tuesday on Facebook, that the hunger will continue until action is taken. “Fire Mattingly and Cosgrove. Remove the pensions of Hankinson, Mattingly and Cosgrove. No Justice, No Feast!’ 

Many protesters for both Floyd and Taylor take such extreme measures to raise awareness and demand change because they feel that the same thing could have happened to them, or someone they love. 

“It’s something new to try. The citizens of the city and world are willing to do whatever necessary to show you’re mistreating us,” Bryant told Newsy. 

For now, protesters continue to #SayHerName and call attention to the fact that Black women are also victims of police brutality and deserve justice.