It has been four years since Breonna Taylor was killed inside her home by a hail of bullets fired by three Louisville, Kentucky, police officers. It has also been nearly four years since Vice President Kamala Harris uttered Taylor’s name in agreement that the 26-year-old first responder had not received justice when a grand jury declined to charge any of the shooting officers for causing her death.
Last week, Taylor’s family was hit with another devastating development in their journey for justice.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson III dismissed a portion of the charges against former Louisville Metro Police Department Sgt. Kyle Meany and Detective Joshua Jaynes, who were accused of starting a chain of events that led to Taylor’s death. The remaining civil rights charges reduce the maximum punishment from life in prison to up to a year in jail.
The judge concluded that Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was responsible for her March 13, 2020, death because he fired a warning shot that hit an officer in the thigh. As a result, the injured officer and two other plainclothes officers returned fire for “self-protection,” the judge ruled — negating Walker’s constitutional rights as a legal gun owner, and his rights under the state’s Castle Doctrine, better known as the stand your ground law.
The decision to blame Taylor’s boyfriend for her death, and not the officers, is another stark reminder of the need for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which includes ending qualified immunity, advocates said.
Christopher 2X, a longtime community organizer, and friend of Taylor’s family, said, “I was just thinking about her mother [Tamika Palmer] in regards to how she would interpret that particular ruling by the judge.”
“It’s just more pain on top of pain, and unfortunately, that’s the way the court system goes,” he said.
During the campaign, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have not been specific about their stance on criminal justice reform even though Harris co-authored the first draft of the Floyd bill when she served in the U.S. Senate.
And the Democrats’ party platform hasn’t veered from the messaging President Joe Biden had — reducing mass incarceration, holding police accountable, and keeping students safe while they’re in school.
At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, former President Donald Trump pledged to combat police violence by giving police “back their power,” in part by limiting federal oversight over local police departments and strengthening qualified immunity.
Christopher 2X said Harris should talk more on the campaign trail about policing reforms. “With this ruling by Judge Simpson, the conversation of police reform keeps going on. There’s no backtracking in this conversation. People can, in the most civil way, have the conversation, debate about it, [especially] when these incidents are right in front of your face, the ruling is right in front of your face, the conversation doesn’t stop,” Christopher 2X said.
The founder of Game Changers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating children about violence in order to end violence in the long term, Christopher 2X said Harris should answer questions about policing reform just like it was a question about the economy.
“She’s a former prosecutor. I believe, respectfully, that she should talk about it (police reform) with force, and with great understanding of the atmosphere that’s still asking for that conversation,” Christopher 2X said, adding, “She should be willing and ready to address this whole issue that still, there’s no answers to.”
Although robust policing reforms have stalled on the federal level, local governments across the country have turned proposals such as banning choke holds into law. When Taylor’s family settled their lawsuit against the city of Louisville and the officers who opened fire for $12 million, the settlement included agreed upon police reforms such as limiting the use of no-knock warrants
The number of Black people killed by the police rose since 2020
Since 2020, the number of people, especially Black people, killed by the police has continued to rise, according to the Mapping Police Violence database. So far this year, 214 Black lives have been lost during encounters with police, nearing the 264 killed in 2020.
Researchers behind Mapping Police Violence released a new database Wednesday that focuses on nonfatal police encounters in the United States between 2017 and 2022, the Guardian first reported. The database found that in each year, over 300,000 people experienced use of force by police that includes chemical sprays, K-9 dog attacks, neck restraints, stun guns as well as beanbags and baton strikes.
Black people are more susceptible to nonfatal police violence than being killed by police, the report found.
Hawk Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York and Black Opportunities, wrote in an email to Capital B that the organization’s Black Agenda 2024 consists of dozens of proposed policies created by a multigenerational group of leaders from across the country, and for people who “don’t attend your churches or community meetings, engage in local politics, or take your polls.”
The agenda addresses ending qualified immunity to allow families of police violence to personally sue an officer in question. It also calls to “declare a war on poverty” to reallocate funds from “ineffective public initiatives — including law enforcement — to address the social determinants of health.”
If the latter goes in effect, “it would prevent the necessity for cases like Breonna Taylor’s because we would be attacking the root cause of crime, which brings down crime rates,” Newsome said, adding, “Less crime means politicians are less likely to allow illegal and overzealous policing.”