Grand jury charged one police officer with 3 counts of wanton endangerment (felony).
He was the one fired for (allegedly) basically standing outside and shooting blindly into the apartment of Taylor and her neighbors.
Sounds like the charges are for the shots into the other apartments - speculation is that the ballistics showed none of his shots hit Taylor - speculation.
No murder.
No manslaughter.
No one else indicted or charged.
But if he was found guilty of all 3 and sentenced to consecutive terms, the time could exceed a single sentnec on a single charge of manslaughter. (According to TV talking head lawyer on local TV. Take it for what its worth.)
It sucks, but given what KY law says, it’s to be expected.
The problem is A) allowing no knock warrants & B) “stand your ground” laws. Possibly even C) the high burden necessary to charge an one of line police officer.
All of those laws are unnecessary allowances that lead to unnecessary tragedies. Put simply, they are bad laws.
When you add a policing model that is more about targeting/profiling vs protecting and serving, amplify the bad laws. That’s because they come into play more often.
This isn’t a difficult equation to understand. The difficult part is changing it once it’s established.
Louisville already banned no knock warrants. That’s at least a start.
The answer is for KY to change their laws. And to reform police departments/policies.
As part of the settlement with Breonna Taylor’s family, the city created a review board. That isn’t entirely controlled by police departments. That’s also a good move. But there are many more that need to happen. Some see the protests as unnecessary and excessive. In reality they are a collective expression of being tired of being tired. People have had enough. And rightly so. It’s ridiculous that we’re still seeing events like B Taylor’s death and G. Floyd’s death. We SHOULD be better than this by now.
The political spectrum keeps shifting right in this country, and in KY, it’s accelerated further than other places. It went from purple to solid red over the last decade or two. Despite the state being full of poor people that are harmed by the policies of (mostly) the republicans in KY.
When you elect people that pass these kinds of laws, you will always see more injustice. That’s because these types of laws will almost always affect poor people & people of color more than everyone else. It’s by design. It’s a feature, not a bug.
I hope this is the wake up call for people to register to vote, and to take EVERY election seriously. There’s enough people that have had enough, and the ONLY way they can change things is to vote, and continue to peacefully protest. The conversation and framing of the issues have shifted, and as long as it’s in the public’s consciousness, it will lead to more action.
Having said all of that, I feel for the city of Louisville tonight. I really hope folks can swallow their (righteous) anger, and do the right thing. I suspect we’ll see escalations from protestors and overreactions from the police, and it’ll be a mess by the end of the night.