We Failed Her
I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry? My heart is broken? I’m numb? There aren’t words anymore.
We failed this young woman. She was gunned down in her apartment for having the temerity to know a drug dealer. Mind you, she was and remains completely innocent of any charges or violations. But in the middle of the night, half a dozen cops kicked in her door and fired round after round into her apartment building. One of the officers, the only one charged, blindly fired ten or so shots through the walls and patio door. He didn’t and couldn’t know what was behind them. I’ll tell you.
There were two people. One, a man named Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend, thought their house was being invaded by the very man the police were suspicious of. Unaware that the police were the ones crashing into Ms. Taylor’s apartment, Kenneth did what every resident of Kentucky has the right to do: he protected his loved one from imminent harm. The police did not know that they were encountering two people, instead of just Ms. Taylor. And in a gross display of incompetence, returned fire, striking Breonna five times.
She did not die right away. Instead, she collapsed in the hallway where she was shot and slowly bled to death over the next ten minutes. Where were the police? They were tending to their own, as Mr. Walker had better aim than the police and actually hit his target. Sadly, if the police had followed protocol and allowed the ambulance that had been on the scene to remain, she might have been saved.
Instead, she died in that hallway, totally unaware of what had actually transpired. She was an innocent person and had no reason to think the police would come kicking in her door in the middle of the night. If anyone else had been in that situation, been awoken in the night by someone pounding on (and then through) your door, they might have responded with force as well.
On Monday, a state of emergency was declared in Louisville. Surely, it was a harbinger of bad news. The authorities knew what was coming. There would be no justice so there would be no peace. And instead of having the courage to stand up to a blatantly incompetent, overaggressive, militarized police force, it was easier and more politically convenient to call for a curfew and board up businesses. The verdict came out.
There would be no justice for Breonna. But the material objects that would be her tomb, the walls and windows of her apartment building, did find justice. None of the police officers who killed her were charged with anything. No. The sole officer who fired haphazardly into the building would face accountability for daring to put holes in a wall and break some glass. That’s it.
Black bodies in America count for less than property.
This thought disgusts me and shakes me to my core. But what else can be learned from this? She was innocent. She did not fire the gun. She was not a drug dealer or a criminal. She had the bad luck of happening to know someone who was. Guess what, White America? You probably know a dealer too. And yet you would never think that the police would come crashing through your doors in the middle of the night, guns blazing. You get to live in that safety. Our fellow citizens who are targeted by law enforcement specifically for living where they live and knowing who they know, don’t get to enjoy that.
For me, this is about more than police brutality. It is about more than militarized forces who view their communities as war zones to be violently occupied. This is about more than racial injustice. This is about basic human decency and the right to live. At what point will we come to the conclusion that something in this country has to change? We are all Americans, afforded the same protections and rights in the Constitution. A violation of those rights is a violation against all of us. Because if we tolerate it for criminals, and then we tolerate it for people who simply know criminals, it won’t be long until we are tolerating a system that merely suspects criminality and acts against it with lethality. We are already there, depending on your skin tone. If we wait too long to do something, there may be no hope.
There are solutions, just none that the current president can offer, of course. Vote, blah blah blah. There are people who have written about this much better and more intelligently than I ever could. Below are a few links to check out. This has to stop. We cannot fail anyone else.