To the surprise of very few who understand the law, the cops who killed Breonna Taylor were not arrested. One was criminally charged for stormtrooper aim. Protests began, metastasized, and now there's a body count. All of this sparked by months of social media and celebrity-lead rallying behind the slogan of "arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor" suddenly crashing against what I think everyone knew would be the eventual reality - no charges would be brought.
Do I think that Louisville law enforcement shat the bed in applying for and executing the warrants? Damn right I do. Do I think that people are right to be pissed off about it? Damn right I do. Do I think that this would have happened had Ms. Taylor been white? That one's tougher. The warrant was drug-related and it seems that drug charges are disproportionately pursued against minorities. It's also hard to look at the deaths of Philando Castile and Elijah McClain and not take away the impression that some law enforcement officers intrinsically view Black people as more threatening. On the other hand, Ms. Taylor was tragic collateral damage. The reason for the warrant was her past involvement with Jamarcus Glover, who is Black. On the whole, I say it's more likely than not that a no-knock warrant wouldn't have issued against a white female EMT with no criminal history who had dated a drug dealer two years prior. However, from the facts I know, I don't see anything suggesting that the cops executing the warrant pulled the trigger based on Ms. Taylor's race.
Getting back to the point of this post, I think we (and by "we," I mean the small group of individuals who frequent this page, not the county at large) all knew the real cause of Ms. Taylor's death was the no-knock warrant. If strangers enter your house at night, at least in Kentucky, you can defend yourself with a gun. If someone fires at police, police can fire back. Assuming an armed resident, this is a likely result of a no-knock warrant executed at night. If the trigger-happy asshole who murdered Philando Castile didn't go to prison (I know, different jurisdiction), there was never a chance of these cops being convicted.
I understand Louisville eliminated no-knock warrants in the wake of Ms. Taylor's death, which should go a long way toward preventing any similar deaths in the future. The city's also agreed to a very large settlement which can't replace a human life, but it seems like it was reached very quickly without putting the family through protracted litigation. This was positive change.
The internet, however, wanted more. Even though arresting the officers involved was unlikely to prevent another fruitless no-knock warrant from turning into a shootout, the internet wanted vengeance, not change. Celebrities who likely did not understand what a no-knock warrant is or the role it played in this tragedy, joined in with the cry of "Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor!" It became a meme with life of its own, giving people hope (though a very dubious hope if one understands the law) that the officers who had a legal right to be in Ms. Taylor's apartment (I think the warrant was bullshit and shouldn't have issued, but it did) who returned fire would be arrested. Impliedly included in this rallying cry was the goal that the officers be charged with murder, [which was never going to happen. When the probabilities played out and the seriously unlikely failed to occur, the protests started. The protests turned violent, and now we have more casualties than we did the night Breonna Taylor was killed. In my mind, the unrealistic and ill-advised slogan of "Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor" and those who pushed it are largely at fault.
I'm sympathetic to the BLM movement. I think George Floyd, Philando Castille, Eric Garner, Elijah McClain, and far too many other Black men were killed by police for unjustifiable reasons. I get the frustration and the need for change. I get kneeling for the national anthem. I get the NBA strikes. I support all of it, but this one was mishandled from the get go and now more people are dead because social media and celebrities built up unjustified hope in a group of people still reeling from a parade of injustices.
What do you all think? Are people who pushed to "Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor" partly to blame? Overall, do the recent protests/riots tied to this hurt the message of the BLM movement?
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