Chapter (12) - The brutal murder of Breonna Taylor and the unfair judgment

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman, was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove on March 13, 2020. The officers entered her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, executing a search warrant. The officers knocked before forcing entry, but how the officers announced their identity before forcing entry is in dispute. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a gun at the officers he believed to be intruders, who fired over 20 shots in turn. Taylor was shot six times in the hallway of her apartment and Mattingly was injured by gunfire.

Hankison was fired by the LMPD on June 23, 2020. On September 15, the city of Louisville agreed to pay Taylor's family $12 million and reform police practices. On September 23, a state grand jury indicted Hankison not for Taylor's death, but on three counts of wanton endangerment for endangering a neighbor with his shots. The two other officers involved in the raid were not indicted. Taylor's death and the non-indictment of the police officers for it led to protests across the United States. 

One of the police officer involved in this case Mattingly says that they had knocked the front door and announced that they were from the police department. However, Breonna's boy friend Kenneth Walker says that both of them did not hear any thing when Breonna shouted aloud, "Who is it?" That led him to think that they were intruders, trying to force their way into her apartment. So he fired the first gun shot, just in order to warn them. But what they received back was a flurry of 20 shots, in return. Six of them hit Breonna when she was in the hallway and she immediately died. Among the two different versions given above, it is easy to tell that Walker's version seems to be correct and officer Mattingly is lying. In the first place, if you are a police officer, then you should announce your identity very clearly, without any ambiguity. You must say that you are from the Police Department, loud and clear. In stead, these guys chose to speak some thing else and not a word was said that they belonged to the Louisville Police Department. Under these circumstances, the inhabitants of that place, would certainly get confused and frustrated. Because of the uncertainty, repeated knocking in the night, Walker fired the first shot and it is entirely reasonable for any one to do so, for the sake of self-defense. Walker did nothing wrong by firing in the direction from where the noises were coming. 

Now here comes the most vital point. After hearing the gun shot that came from within the apartment that hit Mattingly on his leg, all 3 police officers fired so hard as if they were some army officers on a war-front and were facing a large number of heavily armed enemies in some kind of a lethal war! Was this war? No. There were just two people inside, an innocent couple. The officers had assumed that these two were in possession of drugs (which in fact was proven to be wrong later on). Based on this false assumption they decided to force an entry into Breonna's apartment. Its okay for any police officer to enter a civilian's apartment but only after providing a clear and sufficient proof of their identity. In the absence of proof, any body would react in the same manner as what Walker did, as this raid was in the night time, when things become dark and precarious. What was the need for those officers to fire 20 shots against 1? Is this the way police officers deal with the citizens in all the countries of the world?? No. Absolutely not. Then why did these 3 officers behave in such a violent manner? Was it all pre-planned? The answer is yes. They knew in advance that the apartment was of a black woman from the information they had got. It said that the woman was in possession of drugs. So they must have decided to scare her right from the beginning and just play around right on. In order to do that, they did not speak clearly when she asked from inside, who they were. They wanted that when she opens the door she should be shocked to see the police at such late time in the night. They must have thought that once they find those drugs in her home, they will arrest her in a rather embarrassing manner and put her inside the lockup. But instead, it was they who got the shock treatment as they received a gunshot from within. To fire back when under attack, is police mentality but 2 or maximum 3 shots were enough to give a strong reply. But these bullies dressed up as Louisville police men fired back not 5 not 10 but 20 shots against 1. What the hell was that?? Were they fighting in World War 3? Such an absurd, ruthless and relentless attack was very likely to kill someone inside the apartment and Breonna became the one. Suppose that apartment was of a white woman and not of a black one or suppose Breonna was a white woman, would those policemen have fired 20 rounds??? Instinctively the answer that comes out from almost every mind is NO. (Yes, you can conduct an online survey of american citizens, by asking this question and I am pretty sure that majority of them, including so many whites, will say NO). This clearly means that these 3 police officers were racists and their action of firing 20 shots at those 2 black people inside the apartment was totally an act of crime. They never thought of the seriousness of the consequences of their brutal action. All what they wanted was to suppress any and all of the opposition that came from that building in an extremely dominant, violent and arrogant manner ONLY BECAUSE they knew that those people inside were blacks. For such monstrous brutality they should have been indicted, convicted and then punished. But none of these have happened. No charges have been levelled against them. This is extremely shocking, disgusting and condemnable. It proves that not just those officers but the Attorney General as well as other judged who passed the judgment on this case are all racists. They have closed down the Breonna Taylor case as if it was not a murder but some kind of an accident, which the 3 police officers never intended to get involved in. The fact that despite solid evidence this case has been closed in this manner also reflects that justice in the US lacks truth, efficiency, accuracy and adequate information. It is misguided by just one sentiment and that is racism. If you are black, you can get into deep trouble, all of a sudden for smallest of offences. You can get jailed, get hit, shot at or chokeheld by their white policemen or even get killed for a thing which you never did. But if you are a white person, they will spare you most of the time. It's rather unfortunate and ironical, friends, that this kind of heinous discrimination still exists in the 21st century, that too in a highly developed country like America. It would have been understandable if this would have happened in the 17th or 18th century when human minds were not broadened and enlightened by fantastic inventions like that electricity, telephones, jets, televisions, internet etc. But in 21st century? If you are doing such things in the 21st century it clearly means that your mind has not developed yet. Science is such a superb subject that it definitely will develop your mind and broaden your thinking, in the process very strongly helping you to come out from the narrow concepts created by racist ideology. It will just terminate any kind of inequality amongst humans that exists in your brain, even the smallest portion of it. It will make you embrace all men, women and children with love and affection, considering them all the children of God Almighty, bound by a single thread of human genome. But the fact you still live in this pathetic manner, harboring an uncivilized school of thought called racism, means that you are still living in some undeveloped period of 17th century wherein the enlightenment of knowledge hasn't yet happened with you. You are still far away from any kind of true inspiration of the fact as to why God created humans equal and why everyone of them should treat each other that way. You have no right to call yours an advanced nation as these are no signs of advancements. Neither do you have any right to brag yourself as "the land of the free" as this is not freedom, when 12% of your citizens live under the constant fear of getting insulted, hit any time, shot at or getting killed anywhere. Your country did become independent from the british rule in 1776 but it seems that freedom was only "reserved" for those with the white skin and not for the black and brown communities living there. They still like slaves there, similar to the ones who were forced to migrate  from Africa into the US, 400 years ago as bonded labors. This whole scenario of the black community people's life inside the US is very grim and requires immediate attention from world bodies like United Nations and Amnesty International. Unless this huge problem of systemic racism doesn't get solved, these organisations can't claim that equality is prevailing amongst all humans as they would like to. 

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