October 1st, 2020 | Written By - Camryn Houston '21
It has been 202 days since the murder of Breonna Taylor. On March 13th, in Louisville Kentucky, police stormed into the apartment of Breonna Taylor where she and boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping. The couple awoke to loud banging and called out to the unknown knocking, questioning who was at the door. When there was no response, Walker grabbed his weapon and fired a shot as officers broke through the door of Breonna’s apartment. Walker’s bullet likely entered the leg of Officer Jonathan Mattingly and police fired back six shots directly into Breonna Taylor. Police entered Breonna’s apartment looking for suspects involved with a drug trafficking case, but the suspects they were investigating actually lived miles away. The city has waited months for Breonna Taylor to receive any type of justice. However, earlier this month, Louisville finally settled a case filed by Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, awarding her estate 12 million dollars.
On Wednesday, September 23rd, ex-detective Brett Hankinson was indicted on three accounts of wanton endangerment in the first degree. Although this can be seen as a victory for Breonna’s family, Hankinson was not indicted for the murder of Breonna Taylor, but the endangerment of her apartment neighbors. Authorities discovered that some of the 30 reckless shots fired into Taylor’s apartment ended up traveling into the neighboring apartment, which is cited as the cause of Hankinson’s indictment. This result brought outrage to many and, just hours after the court’s decision, protests erupted throughout Louisville. If the officers’ stray bullets are an example of malpractice worth indictment, why is there not the same level of accountability for the same officers whose bullets ended the life of a woman asleep in her apartment? The walls of her neighbors' apartment have received “justice” before Breonna has.
Breonna Taylor is just one of the innocent souls lost to police mistakes. After her murder, The Louisville city council passed “Breonna’s Law,” which banned no-knock warrants, the ones that allowed the police to enter her apartment without announcing who they were that horrific night.
Breonna Taylor should be alive right now, furthermore, the justice for her murder should have been swift and immediate. Instead, it has taken months for the officers involved in her murder to be held accountable, fired, or sentenced to prison. It is extremely frustrating to know that this is the state we, as a nation, currently find ourselves in. Repeatedly this past year we have seen the fatal threat police frequently pose to the community that they are designed to protect. I believe that herein lies the problem: our current police system is not designed to protect the people and it never was. Today we live in an America where police officers abuse their power, disregard their training, and quite literally get away with murder. A drastic change is long overdue, we need to work towards defunding the police and reallocating funds to invest in our communities. We need to abolish the violent hold police have on these communities and hold every guilty officer accountable.
Image Published By Vanity Fair; Originally from Getty Images
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