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Don’t even pretend to me that the Breonna Taylor verdict was justice

Breonna Taylor
Breonna Taylor

It’s not right, it’s not justice, and they know it. That’s why all police vacations were cancelled. That’s why there’s already a curfew in Louisville. That’s why even the Illinois National Guard is on standby in Chicago

I’m talking, of course, about the Breonna Taylor verdict announced earlier today.

If you somehow don’t know, Taylor was an emergency medical worker who was shot to death in her apartment when the police entered her home without knocking. If you somehow haven’t seen her photo on TV and T-shirts, if you have not heard her name shouted by hurt and hurting men and women in the streets, you should know that she was killed by three police officers who were being investigated for her death.

Today, the Kentucky grand jury came back with an indictment for only one of those under investigation, former officer Brett Hankison, who will be charged with three counts of wanton endangerment. Hankinson, who shot into the apartment 10 times on March 13, will not even face a criminal charge for death.

“According to Kentucky law, the use of force by [the officers] was justified to protect themselves,” said State Attorney General Daniel Cameron at a news conference. “This justification bars us from pursuing criminal charges in Miss Breonna Taylor's death.”

When a law is unjust, shouldn’t we work to change it? Wasn’t the counting of black people as 3/5th of a person a law? Wasn’t slavery legal? It took a civil war to move the nation.

Do they want a civil war? Because this is how you get a civil war. This is the catalyst.

The First World War was sparked because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. The tensions had been rising, the unrest churning, the kindling gathered.

Hankinson and the other two police involved in the incident that led to Taylor’s death, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Officer Myles Cosgrove, were placed on administrative leave following the shooting. It wasn’t until June 23rd that Hankinson was fired from the department for showing “extreme indifference to the value of human life,” according to his termination letter.

It’s as if they are trying to appease the public with the most minimal of changes: “Here, we will place the officers on leave. Not enough? Okay, we will fire one. Not enough? Well, we will give the family some money and stop no-knock warrants. Now please be quiet and continue working frontline jobs during a pandemic that is killing thousands of people every day.”

Breonna is only one name in the long list of Black men and women who have been killed by mostly white police officers. Now that every citizen is armed with a camera, most of these atrocities are being recorded and shared on social media, sometimes instantly. No longer is it a “he said, she said” conversation. It’s a clear “I can’t breathe” or a cry for their mama or the face of shocked children in the back of the car.

Breonna — say her name! — is joined by George Floyd as flashpoints in the national movement, the second civil rights movement, when he was killed with a knee on his neck on May 25th in Minneapolis for allegedly using a counterfeit bill. I say “allegedly” because we will never know if he was guilty. He was never given his day in court—innocent until proven guilty, remember?—and, even if he was guilty, the sentence for being in possession of a counterfeit bill is not death. It’s one year in prison and a fine of up to $3,000. Even the worst sentence for resisting arrest is five years in prison and/or $10,000 in fines. Not death. Never death.

We the people — will we go quiet into this good night?

I hope not. Not until officers are held accountable, not until they are charged and convicted and spend time behind bars. Not until police brutality is ripped from the strategic systemic oppression that is written into America’s foundation. We want police to do their jobs, to protect and serve. Everyone.

No justice. No peace.