LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Hours after a Ken­tucky grand jury brought no charges against Louisville police for Bre­on­na Taylor’s death and pro­test­ers took to the streets, author­i­ties said two offi­cers were shot and wound­ed Wednes­day night dur­ing the demon­stra­tions express­ing anger over the killings of Black peo­ple at the hands of police.

Inter­im Louisville Police Chief Robert Schroed­er said a sus­pect was in cus­tody but did not offer details about whether that per­son was par­tic­i­pat­ing in the demon­stra­tions. He says both offi­cers are expect­ed to recov­er, and one is under­go­ing surgery.

He says the offi­cers were shot after inves­ti­gat­ing reports of gun­fire at an inter­sec­tion where there was a large crowd.

Sev­er­al shots rang out as pro­test­ers in down­town Louisville tried to avoid police block­ades, mov­ing down an alley­way as offi­cers lobbed pep­per balls, accord­ing to an Asso­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ist. Peo­ple cov­ered their ears, ran away and fran­ti­cal­ly looked for places to hide. Police with long guns swarmed the area, then offi­cers in riot gear and mil­i­tary-style vehi­cles blocked off roadways.

The vio­lence comes after pros­e­cu­tors said two offi­cers who fired their weapons at Tay­lor, a Black woman, were jus­ti­fied in using force to pro­tect them­selves after they faced gun­fire from her boyfriend. The only charges were three counts of wan­ton endan­ger­ment against fired Offi­cer Brett Han­ki­son for shoot­ing into a home next to Taylor’s with peo­ple inside.

The FBI is still inves­ti­gat­ing poten­tial vio­la­tions of fed­er­al law in con­nec­tion with the raid at Taylor’s home on March 13.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for Taylor’s fam­i­ly, denounced the deci­sion as “out­ra­geous and offen­sive,” and pro­test­ers shout­ing, “No jus­tice, no peace!” imme­di­ate­ly marched through the streets.

Scuf­fles broke out between police and pro­test­ers, and some were arrest­ed. Offi­cers fired flash bangs and a few small fires burned in a square that’s been at the cen­ter of protests, but it had large­ly cleared out ahead of a night­time cur­few as demon­stra­tors marched through oth­er parts of down­town Louisville. Dozens of patrol cars blocked the city’s major thoroughfare.

Demon­stra­tors also marched in cities like New York, Chica­go, Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Atlanta and Philadelphia.

Tay­lor, an emer­gency med­ical work­er, was shot mul­ti­ple times by white offi­cers who entered her home on a no-knock war­rant dur­ing a nar­cotics inves­ti­ga­tion. State Attor­ney Gen­er­al Daniel Cameron, how­ev­er, said the inves­ti­ga­tion showed the offi­cers announced them­selves before enter­ing. The war­rant used to search her home was con­nect­ed to a sus­pect who did not live there, and no drugs were found inside.

Along with the killing of George Floyd in Min­neso­ta, Taylor’s case became a major touch­stone for nation­wide protests that have drawn atten­tion to entrenched racism and demand­ed police reform. Taylor’s image has been paint­ed on streets, embla­zoned on protest signs and silk-screened on T‑shirts worn by celebri­ties. Sev­er­al promi­nent African Amer­i­can celebri­ties joined those urg­ing that the offi­cers be charged.

The announce­ment drew sad­ness, frus­tra­tion and anger that the grand jury did not go fur­ther. The wan­ton endan­ger­ment charges each car­ry a sen­tence of up to five years.

Mor­gan Julian­na Lee, a high school stu­dent in Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na, ed the announce­ment at home.

“It’s almost like a slap in the face,” the 15-year-old said by phone. “If I, as a Black woman, ever need jus­tice, I will nev­er get it.”

Gov. Andy Beshear, a Demo­c­rat, said he autho­rized a lim­it­ed deploy­ment of the Nation­al Guard. He also urged Cameron, the state attor­ney gen­er­al, to post online all the evi­dence that could be released with­out affect­ing the charges filed.

“Those that are cur­rent­ly feel­ing frus­tra­tion, feel­ing hurt, they deserve to know more,” he said.

The case exposed the wide gulf between pub­lic opin­ion on jus­tice for those who kill Black Amer­i­cans and the laws under which those offi­cers are charged, which reg­u­lar­ly favor police and do not often result in steep crim­i­nal accusations.

At a news con­fer­ence, Cameron spoke to that dis­con­nect: “Crim­i­nal law is not meant to respond to every sor­row and grief.”

“But my heart breaks for the loss of Miss Tay­lor. … My moth­er, if some­thing was to hap­pen to me, would find it very hard,” he added, chok­ing up.

But Cameron, who is the state’s first Black attor­ney gen­er­al, said the offi­cers act­ed in self-defense after Taylor’s boyfriend fired at them. He added that Han­ki­son and the two oth­er offi­cers who entered Taylor’s apart­ment announced them­selves before enter­ing — and so did not exe­cute the war­rant as “no knock,” accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion. The city has since banned such warrants.

“Accord­ing to Ken­tucky law, the use of force by (Offi­cers Jonathan) Mat­ting­ly and (Myles) Cos­grove was jus­ti­fied to pro­tect them­selves,” he said. “This jus­ti­fi­ca­tion bars us from pur­su­ing crim­i­nal charges in Miss Bre­on­na Taylor’s death.”

Cameron said an FBI crime lab deter­mined that Cos­grove fired the bul­let that killed Taylor.

Taylor’s boyfriend, Ken­neth Walk­er, opened fire when police burst in, hit­ting Mat­ting­ly. Walk­er told police he heard knock­ing but didn’t know who was com­ing in and fired in self-defense.

Cameron, who is a Repub­li­can, is a pro­tégé of Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell and has been tagged by some as his heir appar­ent. His was also one of 20 names on Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s list to fill a future Supreme Court vacancy.

At a news con­fer­ence, Trump read a state­ment from Cameron, say­ing “jus­tice is not often easy.” He lat­er tweet­ed that he was “pray­ing for the two police offi­cers that were shot.”

Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Joe Biden and his run­ning mate, Kamala Har­ris, are call­ing for polic­ing reform.

Biden says that while a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues, “we do not need to wait for the final judg­ment of that inves­ti­ga­tion to do more to deliv­er jus­tice for Bre­on­na.” He said the coun­try should start by address­ing exces­sive force, ban­ning choke­holds and over­haul­ing no-knock warrants.

“We must nev­er stop speak­ing Breonna’s name as we work to reform our jus­tice sys­tem, includ­ing over­haul­ing no-knock war­rants,” Har­ris said on Twitter.

Han­ki­son was fired on June 23. A ter­mi­na­tion let­ter sent by inter­im Louisville Police Chief Robert Schroed­er said he had vio­lat­ed pro­ce­dures by show­ing “extreme indif­fer­ence to the val­ue of human life” when he “wan­ton­ly and blind­ly” fired his weapon.

Mat­ting­ly, Cos­grove and the detec­tive who sought the war­rant, Joshua Jaynes, were placed admin­is­tra­tive reassignment.

Last week, the city set­tled a law­suit against the three offi­cers brought by Taylor’s moth­er, Tami­ka Palmer, agree­ing to pay her $12 mil­lion and enact police reforms.

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Lovan report­ed from Frank­fort, Ken­tucky. Asso­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Claire Galo­faro, Bruce Schrein­er and Rebec­ca Reynolds Yonker in Louisville, Ken­tucky, Kevin Frek­ing in Wash­ing­ton, Aaron Mor­ri­son in New York and Haleluya Hadero in Lan­cast­er, Penn­syl­va­nia, contributed.

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Huds­beth Black­burn is a corps mem­ber for the Asso­ci­at­ed Press/Report for Amer­i­ca State­house News Ini­tia­tive. Report for Amer­i­ca is a non­prof­it nation­al ser­vice pro­gram that places jour­nal­ists in local news­rooms to report on under­cov­ered issues.

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This sto­ry has been updat­ed to clar­i­fy that, accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion, offi­cers did not exe­cute the war­rant as a no-knock war­rant, not that they didn’t use a no-knock war­rant. It also has been edit­ed to clar­i­fy that the shots fired by Han­ki­son entered anoth­er home with peo­ple inside, not sev­er­al homes.