Today marks one year since Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black front line emergency technician, was shot six times and killed in her home by Louisville, KY police officers attempting a drug raid. Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were awakened in the early morning hours of March 13, 2020, by loud pounding on the front door. They came to search for drugs. There were no drugs and Walker was not the person being sought. Walker, fearing that the apartment was being broken into, grabbed his licensed gun and fired one shot, hitting Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. No one has been prosecuted for killing Breonna. Ms. Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, reflected on her daughter’s death, “Some days are harder than others, but I got great people around me. … It helps pick you up on days that you don’t even want to get up.”
This anniversary comes at the time that the U.S. Congress is considering the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. While no single piece of legislation can resolve all the ills of policing in this country, the Justice in Policing Act will address police accountability, the use of body cameras and other measures to attempt to make policing more just.
For many, Breonna’s death shows glaringly that many refuse to see Black women as human beings, that they are not safe in their own homes and that they have no right to defend themselves against unlawful intrusion. Kentucky is a Castle Doctrine state, meaning that those who use force to protect themselves or others, where they had a right to be and where no crime occurred are entitled to claim self-defense. What we know about systems of exclusion is that they are most deadly to those who live at the intersection of class race and gender.
From start to finish, the Louisville Metro Police operation that killed Breonna Taylor reads like an “encyclopedia of police incompetence,” according to Samuel Walker, a nationally renowned expert in criminal justice policy. “The litany of errors shows that the March 13 police shooting of Taylor in her home was more than the result of a few bad apples.” There are reports that police used false or misleading information to obtain a no-knock warrant to enter Taylor’s home, that the warrant identified the wrong location, that the crime scene investigation was contaminated and that no video exists because police body cameras were not activated.
Kentucky is a Castle Doctrine state, meaning that those who use force to protect themselves or others, where they had a right to be and where no crime was being committed, are entitled to claim self-defense. The fact that the drug raid was botched helps to explain why attempted murder charges were dropped against Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend. It is inconsistent that Walker could be held blameless, yet none of the officers were criminally responsible. Either the police were present legally and Walker was wrong to fire, or the police had no probable cause to enter the home and should be held accountable for Ms. Taylor’s death.
If the police response was unprofessional and possibly, illegal, the prosecutorial response has, so far been totally inadequate. Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a protégé of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, has been urged by protestors to “do your job” and indict those responsible for killing Breonna Taylor. Many believe that Cameron, who is Black, did not even seek a warrant for the shooting of Breonna Taylor. The only indictment rendered was against an officer who fired into a neighboring apartment, injuring no one.
Reaction to Breonna Taylor’s death included massive protests in Kentucky and across the nation. It played a role in Amy McGrath’s failed attempt to defeat Senator Mitch McConnell in November, 2020.
2020 was a year of at least three intersecting pandemics. A few weeks after Breonna Taylor’s murder, the world learned that Black folk were dying from COVID19 at rates 2-3 times higher than White people. The Pandemic shut down the economy, causing a torrent of business failures, job loss and food insecurity. The health crisis and the economic crisis were magnified by a crisis in race relations as serious and widespread as the tumult following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968.
In June, the Louisville Metro Council passed Breonna’s Law, which bans no-knock police warrants. Activists are pushing for the law to be adopted statewide and have been organizing in Texas, Michigan and Virginia for its adoption there.
There is hope that the new U.S. Attorney General, Merrick Garland, will take a closer, less biased look at the case and the complaints against the officers lodged by Ms. Tamika Palmer. Yesterday, Kentucky State Rep. Attica Scott, who represents Louisville in the state legislature, filed House Resolution 93, urging newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to “fully investigate” the death of Breonna Taylor. Also, yesterday, Kenneth Walker filed a federal lawsuit, indicating that the dismissal of criminal charges against him “cannot reverse the trauma and loss” he endured.
Taylor’s family reached a historic $12 million settlement with the city of Louisville in September, but her mother says the money does not satisfy the desire for accountability. Elected officials, activists and lawyers for the family still press for justice for Breonna Taylor, in the courts, the legislatures and in the media. Until Freedom, a social justice organization co-founded by civil rights activist Tamika Mallory, will hold a direct action training in Louisville to ensure that activists understand how to bring about social change. Mallory believes “this movement has grown beyond Breonna” to represent all Black women.
Earlier this week, in a stunning demonstration of racial prejudice, U.S. Republican Senator Ron Johnson announced that he did not fear insurrectionists who breached the U.S. Capitol because they were patriotic, law-abiding citizens, but that he does fear Black Lives Matter protestors. Meanwhile, the Georgia legislature passed a set of voter suppression laws as restrictive of anything that prevailed during the Jim Crow period of this nation’s history.
Oprah Winfrey did something she had never done before – she put Breonna Taylor on the cover of her O Magazine, which she explained by saying, “Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem. What I know for sure: We can’t be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice. And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of O magazine.”
We, too must use every means at our disposal to cry for justice. This anniversary comes at a time fraught with racial tension – over voting rights, over policing and health equity. These injustices cannot be put into silos. Now it is up to us. We must support the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We the people must let our state and federal officials know that we demand protection of basic civil and human rights. Until freedom comes, we will remember Breonna Taylor and continue to say her name.
Onward!
Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Ph.D.
Chair and 7th National President
