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Breonna Taylor’s verdict failure

Only one of three officers involved in her killing received a charge, and it was for a class D felony.

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“The sad part about the verdict on Breonna Taylor’s killing is that when Louisville announced a state of emergency, set up a curfew, and activated the national guard, we already knew no justice was going to be served,” said activist and podcast creator Dom Roberts on Instagram, summing up what we all thought after hearing the jury's verdict in the Breonna Taylor case.

“The even sadder part was no one was surprised,” she added, recalling how the national guard was released in 2014 when it was announced that Darren Wilson was acting in “self-defense” for murdering Mike Brown.

“Hearing the same for Breonna Taylor a couple of days ago, I already knew what the verdict was. They would rather protect their own than finally allow justice to take place for an innocent woman who was killed,” she wrote.

 

More than six months after Taylor was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police, a grand jury has indicted only one of the three officers who fired weapons.

Former officer Brett Hankinson has been indicted on three counts of wanton endangerment. In other words, the potential harm of her neighbors is being taken more seriously than the death of Taylor.

Roberts is not alone in her anger, grief, and frustration. Activists all over the country took to the streets and to social media to protest the way that Breonna’s life was disregarded.

In a viral tweet, a young woman named Joslina decried Taylor’s name used for promotion in more than one instance.

“She was used for everything. Used to promote everything. Used to make people look good and socially conscious. Used to promote parties. Used for memes. Used as an example. Used and used and used. And even with all of this, she didn’t get the one thing she needed. Justice,” she wrote.

Joslina’s words went viral because they are true. Breonna Taylor was given everything but what she truly needed.

Breonna got a law named after her in Louisville banning no-knock warrants, Hulu made a documentary about her, her family won $12 million in a wrongful death lawsuit, but her killers still walked free.

Activists mobilized and pushed for Attorney General Daniel Cameron to do what is right.

In July, four protesters in Louisville went on a hunger strike for justice, Oprah put Breonna’s face on billboards and on the cover of her magazine, and activists protested in the streets for over 100 days. But Cameron failed them, he failed Breonna, and he failed Black women everywhere.

While activists are currently exhausted and heartbroken, the fight is not over. The demands have moved past simply arresting the cops involved in the shooting. The main focus now is in defunding the system that allowed this to happen.

“Our physical protesting is only one method of change that’s really to support us and unify us around a message, so we know we’re not alone in our pain, but majority of the work that is done outside of what you see in a physical protest, so there’s definitely lots of meetings being planned, lots of people coming together, so we can systemically attack this issue,” Tiffany Allecia, founder of Real Recognize Fake told Western Mass News.

 

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