The cops that killed Breonna Taylor will not be charged for it
A Kentucky grand jury on Wednesday indicted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment six months after Breonna Taylor was killed when three officers burst into her residence and shot the 26-year-old paramedic multiple times during a no-knock raid.
Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly and detective Myles Cosgrove, the two other officers present at the time of the shooting, were not indicted. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron's office shared the findings of its investigation with the jury earlier this week.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, the city of Louisville agreed to pay Taylor's family $12 million dollars—believed to be the largest amount ever for a black woman killed by a police officer in the U.S.—and to implement several police reforms as part of the settlement.
At the time, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said: "No amount of money can bring justice. It's time to move forward with the criminal charges that Breonna Taylor's family has called for."
Following Wednesday's announcement, Debra Gore-Mann, president and CEO of the Greenlining Institute, said that the limited nature of the charges—"wanton endangerment" for only one of three officers—means that "true justice" has been denied to Taylor and her family.
"There will be no justice," said women's rights group UltraViolet, "until all of the officers who killed Breonna are held accountable for her murder."
Comments
Expect riots to ensue
Time to change the frame that killer cops are above the law.
For the people, by the people. It is not in the interest of civil
relations to ignore justice. Disarm the 'peace makers' before it is
too late.
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare
surreal almost beyond belief.
but it get worse: from the louisville courier via msn.com:
what i'm hearing is 'Is this all there is?': goddam.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbUD7kO4Ho]
You will hate this but
caught in the crossfire has never been considered murder. The fault lied in her boyfriend and/or the judge that signed the no knock warrant, not the cops that obeyed orders from their superiors and were fired upon first.
Where is the complaint about murder of the black children )ten year old last night, baby in a car seat the night before) being murdered (term "murder" correctly applied) by black gangsters shooting up a whole neighborhood or intersection without regard of bystanders? Actions by Chicago's black Mayor and black Police Chief are resisted by black aldermen. Racism for sure, but who are the racists? Who says that black people can kill with impunity, disregard gun laws with impunity, because of what happened two hundred years ago?
My sympathies are with the bystanders, of any color, NOT the punk killers.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
"Crossfire" implies somebody was shooting back
Nobody was. It was straight up murder.
They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore
Taylor's boyfriend fired first
He may well have thought it was a home invasion, but it
was after the occupant of the apartment fired that police fired
*back*.
Excessively and with tragic results, but the cops did not, apparently, just go in shooting.
So says the Louisville PD
I am disinclined to take the word of the PD under the circumstances. Has complete ballistic evidence been compiled and released? Do we know exactly the order of each shot and which one of the many shots hit the wounded officer’s leg? Seriously, in the absence of real evidence and given the chaos inside the apartment how can reporters even suggest that the boyfriend is responsible for starting the shooting and wounding the officer.
Trying to defend yourself in your own home from a violent armed intrusion with a handgun was a very bad idea.
Executing unnecessary no-knock warrants are an even worse idea, and are the real cause of this tragedy.
“The story around the world gives a silent testimony:
— The Beresovka mammoth, frozen in mud, with buttercups in his mouth…..”
The Adam and Eve Story, Chan Thomas 1963
Actually
If the castle doctrine applied, the occupant of the residence who believed that his life and the life of his girlfriend was in danger had the right to defend himself against what he thought were intruders. This is exactly why "no knock" raids should be banned completely. Personally, I think they are unconstitutional. Nearly all no knock raids are being used to enforce archaic drug laws and far to often, with tragic consequences to innocent people, children and family pets.
This is happening way too often where police are raiding the wrong residence under a no knock warrant with tragic consequences. Several years ago a mayor in Maryland was the subject of a drug raid in which his mother in law who was cooking dinner as he prepared to attend a meeting, was terrorized and he and she were held by the sheriffs for hours. Both of his dogs were shot killed even though they presented no threat to the police. In the end, he and his mother in law were released and no charges were ever filed.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Yep this!
People have a right to defend their homes and no knocks set them up to be killed. In the case you sited how long was it till they figured out that nothing was happening in the house? The Castle doctrine is just another right that has been nullified. Look at how many states are passing laws against protesting. Oh sure you can still assemble, but just hope no one steps out of line.
And look at what has come around again. Arresting leaders of movements just for being leaders of the movement. If that had ever gone away.
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
That's a lie according to the news
The report is that her boyfriend starting shooting first. Now, I understand that, based on the no knock warrant. I think they should be banned and may well be unconstitutional. I think the drug laws should be repealed. That's where these warrants are used to prevent evidence being flushed down the drain.
But to claim that they just busted in and murdered her is ludicrous beyond belief.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Maybe in this case
this was true, but in other cases when SWAT has gone to the wrong house with a no knock warrant that has happened more than once. People who were not armed have been killed by cops doing no knocks as well as the family pets. There have been numerous cases on this. You can read the Rise of the Warrior Cop as I have suggested or do your own research on cases of SWAT gone wrong if you are interested in the truth of these cases.
IN this case the guy who they were looking for had been arrested before they broke in the door an they killed Taylor.
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
This misses the point
In my opinion:
First off if the person who did this is caught he will be arrested and put on trial and a jury will decide his fate. Cops who kill civilians are rarely charged for it and even when they are the charges eventually get dropped. If they’re fired they more often than not get their jobs back. The cop who shot Tamir Rice was fired, but years later he got his job back with back pay.
We have laws for murder of other civilians, but cops have immunity bestowed on them by the Supreme Court. I see a huge difference between the two cases. YMMV.
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
Agree, in general
with what you say about police generally skating on even egregious cases of killing civilians.
*But* there is a definite double standard in terms of numbers and of how the media plays these things. Black on black homicide - mostly gang banger and/or domestic violence kills vastly more people than are killed by police. And if a black person kills a white person (statistically much more likely than the other way around) it barely registers in media coverage and is covered far differently.
Then there is this:
Firstly, that is a BIG "if" - the percentage of homicides actually solved in places like Chicago is minimal - people risk terminal retaliation from gangs if they cooperate with police, so they don't.
And even being convicted and sentenced to prison does not, apparently, mean that that will actually result in being incarcerated, as was seen graphically in the (black on black) killing of David Dorn where the murderer had received a seven year sentence for robbery but never served a day.
Black ex-policeman on the media and David Blake shooting:
Murder statistics
For what it's worth:
This is as far as I have read on this article. Math (ugh any time) and mornings are not my cup of tea.
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
Good to know numbers
Black on white crime, as opposed to murders, is probably higher because "that's where is money is."
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I don't know what you mean here
Is there a point you are making that I am missing? Why is it so important to talk about blacks committing crimes and murders while ignoring white crimes and murders?
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
The claim was made by someone else that
there is more black on white assault than the reverse. Strictly from an epidemiological standpoint I would expect that to be true of overall crime simply because there are many more rich whites. The actual collors make no difference. If blue-eyed people were substantially richer than brown-eyed people I would expect more brown-eyed crime against blue-eyes than the reverse. It's purely a mathematical argument, nothing racial.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Doing a bit more math
So, stating it another way - those numbers mean white people were killed by people of other races at twice the rate of black people.
Big Disclaimer: I'm no math whiz - if I miscalculate or misconstrue, someone please correct me.
Having said that, looking at the above numbers and adjusting for population...
Given that the US population is around 60.5% white and 13.5% black (white pop 4.48 times higher than black pop), if whites were killing blacks at the same rate and were only 13.5% of the population the number of their black victims would be 52 - just 2% of the 2600 killed by other blacks.
OTOH If blacks were killing whites at the same rate and populations were equivalent (514 times 4.48) the total number of white victims would be 2303 and reflect a slightly lower rate than (86% of) that at which whites are killing each other.
So, yes, intra-racial homicide is higher for both groups but there is a dramatic difference when it comes to inter-racial: if populations were equal, the number of white on black killings would only amount to 2% of the number of black on black killings whereas the number of black on white killings would amount to 86% of the number of white on white killings.
Does that not reflect both a seriously disproportionate tendency toward white on black violence compared to the other way around? And does it not indicate that even with killings by police thrown in that white and police killings together amount to a relatively tiny percentage of all black homicide victims?
And, more importantly, why does the dominant MSM and progressive narrative with which we are constantly hammered so directly and obsessively contradict reality? And attempt to silence anyone challenging their assertions?
Just whose interests are served by that, anyway?
graphic from FBI crime statistics for 2018 Expanded Homicide Data Table 6
I’m going to give you the win here
My brain actually feels fuzzy and very uncomfortable reading statistics and numbers like what you included here. It is a physical sensation and I can’t follow it.
But let’s agree that cops are rarely held accountable when they kill people of any color or state of mind. And that no knock warrants should only be used in extreme cases. What was the rush to arrest someone that they had already arrested? Drugs? Please.
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
there is more
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare
unbearable
period.
NYCVG
[Edit] Hi, SD! We're listening to Louisville coverage.
[Edit - Update - now they're saying 2 cops were shot. Suspects apprehended. Press conference coming up in a few minutes.]
FWIW, a policeman was shot about an hour ago.
No details, according to CNN.
There is a 9:00 pm curfew. (I think it's Eastern time zone--we're Central; so, it's probably already gone into effect.)
Imagine crowd will break, or, things will turn even worse.
I believe that state police and National Guardsmen are there, along with local cops.
Give Charlie an 'ear scritch' for me, as Joe would say.
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
White Lives don't Matter (tm)
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Reactions to announcement in Breonna Taylor case
The following is a collection of reactions to the Breonna Taylor grand jury indictments from posts on Twitter and via statements issued by elected officials and organizational leaders. Order does not imply either timing or importance.
From FORWARD KENTUCKY
Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets
Thanks Philly
Very informative.
The police just did their job and did not break the law. Maybe not, but they sure as hell messed it up.
The guy they were looking for wasn’t even there and I’ve read that he might have already been arrested.
We had this here a few years ago when cops did a no knock for a non violent marijuana offense. Cops broke into his house, he shot and killed one. I think he was found guilty and then committed suicide in prison. Cops knew where he worked and most of his habits and could have arrested him at any time or as he left his apartment with no hassle.
Again I recommend reading Rise of the Warrior Cop and see how we got here.
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
This!
I can think of very few cases in which a no knock warrant should ever be issued. The very idea of a no knock warrant carries with it risk of high endangerment to any occupant within the residence upon which it is being executed. We keep reading over and over how innocent people, including children and family pets, are killed or severely injured as a result of a no knock warrant. No drug violation should ever be worth risking the lives of innocent people in order to make an arrest.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Blame the Judge
who issued a no knock warrant. Don't blame the foot soldier who would be fired if he refused to serve that warrant.
This is VietNam all over again. Liberals, blaming the draftees following orders rather than the politicians who sent them there.
If you wore the uniform, you were wrong, a monster, a baby killer, automatically. Same thing all over.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
You left out the 'spitting on soldiers/Saints' myth
Following orders to commit war crimes are illegal orders and an illegal act.
Yeah we shot everything moving from the smallest baby to the oldest person, but it's ok my platoon leader to me to do it. So we had to do it. FALSE.
"Turse used the secret Pentagon reports and documents to track down more than 100 veterans — including those who had reported witnessing atrocities to their superiors and others charged with carrying out atrocities — and traveled to Vietnam to interview survivors. A decade later he produced a masterpiece.
Case after case in his book makes it painfully clear that soldiers and Marines deliberately maimed, abused, beat, tortured, raped, wounded or killed hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians, including children, with impunity. Troops engaged in routine acts of sadistic violence usually associated with demented Nazi concentration camp guards.
"Murder is an integral part of war. And the most disturbing form of murder, because it is so intimate, is carried out by infantry troops. The god-like power that comes with the ability to destroy anything, including other human beings, along with the intoxicating firepower of industrial weapons, rapidly turns those who wield these weapons into beasts. Human beings are reduced to objects, toys to satiate a perverse desire to dominate, humiliate, control and kill.
Corpses are trophies. Many of the Vietnamese who were murdered, Turse relates, were first subjected to degrading forms of public abuse, gang rape, torture and savage beatings.
” Turse found that “detained civilians and captured guerrillas were often used as human mine detectors and regularly died in the process.” And while soldiers and Marines were engaged in daily acts of brutality and murder, the Central Intelligence Agency “organized, coordinated, and paid for” a clandestine program of targeted assassinations “of specific individuals without any attempt to capture them alive or any thought of a legal trial.”
I guess this was an order?
"“One marine remembered finding a Vietnamese woman who had been shot and wounded,” Turse writes. “Severely injured, she begged for water. Instead, her clothes were ripped off. She was stabbed in both breasts, then forced into a spread-eagle position, after which the handle of an entrenching tool — essentially a short-handled shovel — was thrust up her vagina. Other women were violated with objects ranging from soda bottles to rifles.”
"War always exalts and elevates psychotic killers. And Vietnam became their playground. Sgt. Roy Bumgarner of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division and later the 173rd Airborne Brigade “reportedly amassed an astonishing personal body count of more than 1,500 enemy KIAs, sometimes logging more kills with his six-man ‘wildcat’ team than the rest of his 500-man battalion combined.” Reports of Bumgarner’s indiscriminate killing sprees, excessive even by the standards of Vietnam,
"....Turse’s book obliterates the image we have of ourselves as a good and virtuous nation. It mocks the popular belief that we have a right to impose our “virtues” on others by force. It exposes the soul of our military, which has achieved, through relentless propaganda and effective censorship, a level of public adulation that is terrifying. Turse reminds us who we are. "
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/kill-anything-that-moves/
No myth. Truth
My brother-in-law says he was spit on and called baby killer on his return. Somebody I never met says it was a myth. I believe Bob. I've known him for over fifty years. He was the only one in her family that wasn't aghast that his baby sister was dating an Italian. Bob doesn't lie. I never heard him tell a lie.
Edit: And I never heard him say a racist thing.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
"Collateral damage"
Because even if he specifically didn't commit atrocities, too many other soldiers did.
There is nothing worse than war for turning human beings into orcs. Never has been. Never will be.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
What a familiar story and one meant to characterize
the whole anti-war movement. Btw the biggest, and most effective, protest marches I saw didn't get attacked in the media because Vietnam vets were at the front of the marches.
No one could say you don't know what you're talking about, the government isn't lying to us the war is going splendidly just watch the weekly 'body count' on the evening news and you'll know we're winning.
We all know now some of the truth, and if you bother to look at clips of returning soldiers at that time you see very warm receptions by family and friends for those coming back because like most others even though I opposed the war I couldn't blame it on my cousins and some friends. Myself and others were very happy to see them alive.
Try out some facts...
"The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam is a 1998 book by Vietnam veteran and sociology professor Jerry Lembcke. The book is an analysis of the widely believed narrative that American soldiers were spat upon and insulted by anti-war protesters upon returning home from the Vietnam War.
The book examines the origin of the earliest stories; the popularization of the "spat-upon image" through Hollywood films and other media, and the role of print news media in perpetuating the now iconic image through which the history of the war and anti-war movement has come to be represented.
Lembcke contrasts the absence of credible evidence of spitting by anti-war activists with the large body of evidence showing a mutually supportive, empathetic relationship between veterans and anti-war forces.
The book documents the efforts of the Nixon Administration to drive a wedge between military servicemen and the anti-war movement by portraying democratic dissent as betrayal of the troops, effectively redirecting blame for failure in Vietnam onto protesters. Coupled with American society's exaggeration of medical conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and drug abuse among veterans to the point of broadly vilifying the Vietnam veteran as mentally unfit, emotionally volatile and a "loser" and "victim", the collective memory about Vietnam has been refocused onto the veteran and away from the war.
Lembcke equates this disparagement of the anti-war movement and veterans with the similar stab-in-the-back myths propagated by Germany and France after their war defeats, as an alibi for why they lost the war.[1] Lembcke details the resurrection of this myth of the spat-upon veteran by later administrations during subsequent Gulf War efforts as a way of silencing public dissent."
(all emphasis mine)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image
Outstanding comment
In addition to your list of atrocities there are the recent ones from Afghanistan where some troops killed women and children including a pregnant woman and then they dug out the bullets to keep from getting caught.
Drone operators killed hundreds at weddings and funerals with little kids in attendance and then they killed the people who came to their aid.
Collateral murder showed our depraved indifference to watching our troops killing unarmed civilians and then egged on a person to pick up a weapon so they could kill him too. Then the rescuers.
Human beings are reduced to objects, toys to satiate a perverse desire to dominate, humiliate, control and kill.
Indeed.
If ICE were hunting down Trump’s critics, that would be bad but would make sense.
But ICE is hunting down Israel’s critics.
which prez had said:
'the anti-war movement is the greatest single weapon working against the US'. LBJ? Nixon? i remember if from simon and garfunkel's '7 o'clock silent news'.
Tricky Dick
Pretty certain that was Nixon. Also, if I remember right, it was before he was president ...like '66 or '67.
[EDIT to add this:]
Okay, I looked up the S&G lyrics and found this:
Also noted a release date of 1966.
The Breonna Taylor Grand Jury Decision Home Page
On going coverage from FORWARD KENTUCKY
Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets
Tje one who got indicted
got dinged because he missed her.
That's fucked up
They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore
No, he got indicted because he was spraying bullets wildly
You just hate cops. a goddamned anarchist wanting the gangs to rule.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Best comment seen so far:
"If a good lawyer can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, then why can't they indict a whole pig?"
Why, indeed.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.