Breonna Taylor Did Not Ask To Be A Martyr for Change
“I saw where she laid on the floor and died,” said Tamika Palmer, in reference to her 26-year-old daughter who worked as an emergency medical technician. In an interview for The New York Times Presents, Ms. Palmer said she waited two hours at the hospital before learning that her daughter was not scheduled to arrive.
Upon returning to the scene of the crime, she was kept in the dark about her daughter’s whereabouts. Hours later, she was allowed into her daughter’s apartment. “There was bullet holes everywhere: in the ceiling, into the upstairs apartments, the walls, the clock, the stove, the bed, soap dish,” according to Ms. Palmer. “I was sorry that I wasn’t there.”
In the wee hours of March 13, Louisville Metro Police executed a search warrant at the home of Breonna Taylor as part of a drug investigation. The knock at the door jolted Ms. Taylor out of her sleep and startled her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker. He stated that they were scared, in an interview for The New York Times Presents (now streaming on Hulu). According to Mr. Walker, the couple is approaching the door when it comes off of the hinges. LMPD officers punched in the door with a battering ram.
Fearing an intruder, Mr. Walker retrieved his gun and fired one shot, wounding one officer. LMPD officers returned a barrage of gunfire: a total of 32 shots. Three officers discharged their weapons: Myles Cosgrove, Brett Hankinson, and Jonathan Mattingly. According to the state attorney general, Ms. Taylor was struck six times. One shot was fatal.
Last week, a grand jury in Kentucky charged Brett Hankinson with three counts of “wanton endangerment in the first degree.” The crime is a low level felony in Kentucky punishable by up to five years in prison. According to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor were justified in using deadly force because her boyfriend fired at them first. None of the 10 shots Mr. Hankinson fired are known to have struck Ms. Taylor.
The indictment had absolutely nothing to do with the killing or death of Ms. Taylor, but the endangerment of three people in an apartment next door to hers. The occupants were a pregnant woman, her husband, and their 5-year-old child — none of whom were injured by the shots. The name Breonna Taylor did not even appear on the indictment issued by the Jefferson County Circuit Court.
“The police work in this case was sloppy, and the warrant service was reckless. Taylor is dead because of a cascade of errors, bad judgment and dereliction of duty,” wrote Radley Balko in an opinion column for The Washington Post.
The indictment was an abdication of justice; a lack of accountability and transparency. Countless questions still linger. How was the case presented? What evidence was provided to the grand jury that led them to the conclusion we have today? How is it that Mr. Walker walked away unscathed? Ms. Taylor was an innocent bystander who was unarmed. Didn’t the endangerment of her life and safety warrant the same charges as the family in the neighboring apartment? In the eyes of the law, why were 32 bullets fired by three LMPD officers proportionate to the one fired by Mr. Walker in self-defense?
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron resisted intense pressure to charge all three officers in March. And, during last week’s announcement, Mr. Cameron refused to admit whether he recommended exoneration. Yet, Mr. Cameron did find time to speak at the 2020 Republican National Convention. “Even as anarchists mindlessly tear up American cities while attacking police and innocent bystanders, we Republicans do recognize those who work in good faith towards peace, justice and equality,” he said.
Mr. Cameron may be the first African-American to hold his position and a rising star in the Republican Party. But, all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk! When confronting the legacy of racial terrorism and injustice in America, certain Black people have always participated in their own oppression.
The long-awaited indictment or lack thereof symbolizes how we as black women must fight for our humanity. In 2020, even as we sleep peacefully in our beds, the act of breathing is a threat.
Like Ms. Taylor, we can be the best version of ourselves. And yet, America does not recognize our worth. It does not care to understand our individual or collective trauma. America does not revel in our joy and it certainly does not empathize with our pain.
According to Tamika Mallory, civil rights activist and co-founder of Until Freedom, Ms. Palmer’s attorneys requested that she not be forced to drive an hour from her home in Frankfort to Louisville; to learn of the indictment only to make the drive home toting bad news. That request was not granted.
“I hope you never know the pain of your child being murdered 194 days in a row,” said Ms. Palmer in a recent Instagram post.
Breonna Taylor did not ask to be a martyr for change. Yet, here we are.
