Breonna Taylor, the young black woman shot to death in her apartment by Louisville police officers in March of this year, was not the victim of racist police officers or systemic discrimination by the criminal justice system.

Sadly, the mischaracterization of the circumstances of her death, either due to simple ignorance, or more perniciously, as a result of the appropriation of Miss Taylor’s story in service of a certain political narrative, squanders an opportunity for genuine improvement in our society.

THE FACTS OF THE CASE

Courtesy of the New York Times reporting of Rukmini Callimachi, here is a basic summary of the case:

1. The police obtained a no-knock warrant to raid Taylor’s apartment based on allegations that a suspected drug dealer named Jamarcus Glover had received packages at Taylor’s home (Glover and Taylor had a previous relationship). The police sought the no-knock warrant out of a desire to preserve evidence.

2. Before the warrant was served, the police were directed to knock and announce rather than execute the warrant without knocking. At approximately 12:40 a.m. on March 13, the police pounded on Taylor’s door. Taylor was inside with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker. He lawfully possessed a handgun.

3. At this point the facts are in dispute. Police claim that they knocked and announced they were police. A witness corroborates this account, but other witnesses dispute it, claiming they never heard the cops identify themselves. Walker claims that he was startled by the pounding, asked who was there, never heard a response, and was worried that it might be Glover. So he grabbed his gun.

4. The police then broke down the door to enter the apartment. Walker and Taylor saw them in the darkness, and Walker fired a single shot, striking one officer in the leg, severing his femoral artery and gravely injuring him. Under the available evidence (Walker hadn’t heard the police identify themselves and unknown individuals were violently entering his home), Walker had a legal right to shoot at the intruders, even if they were police. 

5. At the same time, the instant the officers saw that Walker was pointing his gun at them—and certainly when he pulled the trigger—they had their own legal right to shoot back. They were performing their official duties, and an armed man was quite plainly placing them in immediate, mortal danger.

6. They did not, however, have the right to use indiscriminate force. Two officers fired directly at Walker. They hit Taylor, who was standing nearby. But given the proximity of Taylor to Walker, it would be virtually impossible to prove that the officers’ startled response—aimed directly at the perceived threat—was reckless enough to be criminal.

LACK OF PROPER DISCRIMINATION

After looking at the available evidence, the fact is Miss Taylor was the victim of not enough discrimination…on the part police officers, judges, and legislators who were complicit in creating the conflicts of interest that led to her tragic death at the age of 26.

In its original sense, discrimination meant discernment-using one’s reason and judgment to distinguish between competing priorities to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. Only in the last century or so has it taken on the meaning we commonly associate with it today: the prejudicial treatment of others based on categories of race, class, gender, etc. It was the failure of judgment and reason-not blind or callous prejudice-that ultimately led to Miss Taylor’s death.

I understand the desire to maintain the element of surprise. In general, law enforcement does not want to give the subject the opportunity to either escape, destroy incriminating evidence, or prepare an armed defense or barricade. However, it is incumbent upon the police, for their own safety as much as for the safety of the public, to plan each arrest or search warrant according to the best information available for that specific situation.

Simply conducting business as usual, just because that is the way ‘we have always done it’, is not good enough. Hard questions need to be asked each time law enforcement is contemplating using its awesome powers. Did anyone involved seriously consider the following questions:

1. Was the evidence possibly present at Taylor’s apartment significant enough to justify the risks inherent in executing a “no-knock” warrant at 12:40 a.m.?
2. Was the potential recovery of evidence in that manner and in this context reasonable in light of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?

In the case of the tragic events that unfolded last March in Louisville, I recognize it is easy to ‘Monday morning quarterback’ the entire episode. It is clear now, to me at least, that the answers to the two questions posed above are an emphatic “NO”. However, it does no good to be right after the fact. In this case, the answers to those questions should have been “NO” prior to the operation. Why weren’t they?

BALANCING COMPETING INTERESTS

David French, at The Dispatch, argues that Miss Taylor’s death was the tragic result of the confused and contradictory jurisprudence surrounding the legitimate interests of the government in enforcing the law and the competing right of the individual to be secure in his home. As a law enforcement professional for nearly twenty years, I believe French is correct. Something bad was bound to happen. It was only a matter of time.

The police and the courts got it wrong here, and it cost Miss Taylor her life. That is the simple fact. They were wrong not because they were discriminating against a particular group of people. They were wrong because they failed to be discriminating enough about their responsibilities to the public. The question now is, “How do we make sure they do better in the future?”

A REPUBLIC, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT

Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was reportedly asked by someone outside what the convention had produced. He famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin’s response intimates an inescapable truth of our system. We need to do the hard work of maintaining it. In the case of Breonna Taylor, we need to demand our elected officials look critically at the inherent tensions created by recent jurisprudence in the areas of search and seizure. We need to elect representatives who will reform the law, where necessary, so that we clarify the proper constitutional balance between individual liberty and the rule of law.

What we do not need is simplistic sloganeering and irresponsible rhetoric. Yes, being responsible citizens, just like being a responsible adult, is hard..much harder than making a sign and yelling through a bullhorn. If we really want to honor the memory of Breonna Taylor, we need to accept the responsibilities of citizenship and commit to the hard work of building a better republic. We owe it to her and to ourselves.