Bre Tay in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

So I don’t know if people have been interested in my particular perspective on certain issues. I am an attorney, but I’m sensitive. I am a prosecutor, but I am genuinely for ending police brutality. I have given my take on Black Lives Matter and if you don’t know what it is, you can probably figure it out by how I speak on most things. SHORT ANSWER: Black Lives Matter and Police shouldn’t be killed on duty. Now if you think those two opinions cannot co-exist, we need to have a chat.

As to today’s news? I want to share with all of you the facts as they are known to the court and to the investigators (AT LEAST THAT WHICH HAS NOT BEEN WITHHELD). Because, at least given the information we know… there are nuances. I do have an opinion on what should happen, what did happen, and what may happen… but refuse to add that opinion until after the factual statement. It should be a simple statement of facts so that ALL SIDES can see the different elements here. I will not refer to the names of the individuals involved (there is reason to believe they have been publicized enough. So I will say EX or X for Ms. Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Police for Officers as a unit, BF for Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend, and clearly I will refer to the deceased as Ms. Taylor.

This entire thing begins with Police obtaining a no-knock warrant for Ms. Taylor’s EX. The purpose of a no-knock warrant is to allow the police to enter a home without announcing themselves so that the suspect doesn’t run away. As part of the warrant listing Ms. Taylor’s residence, they got someone who lived in the apartment complex to confirm that they believed EX lived with Ms. Taylor. PRIOR to the execution of the warrant, EX was apprehended and in Police custody. This, as a legal fact, invalidates the warrant. The Supreme Court has held in countless cases that once a warrant has been invalidated due to impossibility (impossible in this case meaning: after the subject was in custody, it would have been impossible for the execution of the warrant to lead to his arrest) then any actions taken by the Police afterwards are inadmissible in court as being a violation of rights. IE: if police had executed an invalidated warrant and discovered a marijuana pipe in plain sight, any prosecution regarding that discovery would be thrown out.

NOW, as happens often (too often) the Police executing the no-knock warrant were not informed that the suspect had been arrested. It is also important to note that they are PLAIN CLOTHES OFFICERS which is why they were not wearing body-cams. Their policy is plain clothes don’t need to wear them. They then went to execute the warrant on Ms. Taylor’s residence. HERE IS THE FIRST FACT IN DISPUTE One neighbor claims the police announced themselves, the police claim they announced themselves. All other neighbors claim that the police did not announce themselves and, as a Police Procedure, officers normally would NOT announce themselves when executing a no-knock warrant. The warrant was executed at 1:00 a.m. BF, believing the individuals who had just kicked down the door, were there to harm him… fired at Police. One bullet caught Officer in the shoulder. All 3 officers returned fire. FIVE BULLETS found their way into Ms. Taylor. Other bullets that were fired were lodged into the walls of Ms. Taylor’s apartment or the apartments surrounding hers.

THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT.
After the fact? The allegations of an attempted cover up and trying to make Ms. Taylor looked criminally involved? I can’t use any of those facts to assess the actions of the night in question. That isn’t allowed. AT TRIAL… they may get in as potential evidence of guilty conscience. But as to what happens in a trial, it must be based on the facts of the evening and evidence collected.

MY OPINON:
As a general matter… I honestly believe that there needs to be a Federal Response that simply does not and has not existed. There is no rule or law stating that a police officer killing a civilian is to be investigated by a neutral party with charging decisions being made by that neutral party. And I think that, as a part of “fixing the system” is shameful. Every area makes up their own rules and procedures. I think as a matter of Federal Law, any law enforcement officer who kills a person in the line of duty should be (1) immediately placed on paid suspension and required to attend counseling; (2) an investigation should be launched into the incident and lack of evidence due to police choices should not be considered sufficient… if no body cam is why ‘no charges’ are filed, that should be immediately rectified by requiring body cameras. This whole “but bullshit” argument from cops is stupid. Fuck, even the tiniest police force in my jurisdiction got a federal grant for Body Cams… get on it. AND, to this case in KY particularly… you don’t have requirements for body cams on plain clothes but you were able to get tanks to protect against rioting? (3) After an investigation, barring any OBVIOUS SELF-DEFENSE clams, the evidence should be turned over to a Grand Jury (not a DA/CA) and the Grand Jury should decide the outcome of the case. Leaving it in the hands of elected officials will ALWAYS make it political on some level. (4) IF the Grand Jury decides that charges are appropriate, a Special Prosecutor is assigned so that the DA/CA office that works with that police unit does not have any influence in the course of the case. THAT IS WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE FIRST AND FOREMOST.

As to the present case?
I understand the value of no-knock warrants. I do. They are SUPER important in big drug bust cases because if they’ve destroyed all the evidence before you get the door down, you’ve lost your case.
That being said I think there are some obvious damned things where the police LARGELY fucked up.
FIRST they should have done some of their fucking homework on whether their suspect still frequented that location. I kind of fault the judge here, too, honestly. ONE individual corroborating the presence of drugs in the place within the last 4 days would have been sufficient. But one individual saying they believed the suspect lived with Ms. Taylor? That wouldn’t be enough for most judges I know. Do you have a witness who will confidently say they’ve seen him there within the last 7 days? Do you have anything listing his name and that address? Do you have anything that claims anything more than “she’s living with a black guy that might be our suspect”? Because the fact that the EX wasn’t living there and that he had not been living there long enough that someone else was there… SHOULD HAVE BEEN discovered as part of acquiring the warrant.
SECOND they absolutely should have been alerted that their suspect was in custody. How in the hell do you put a three man team together for a post-midnight raid and NOT CHECK THAT FACT?
THIRD they absolutely should not have used Plain Clothes Officers for a no-knock warrant. This is where MANY would disagree. If the value of a no-knock is to allow police not to tip their hand, uniformed officers arriving seems like a give away. I disagree. I firmly believe there are multiple ways whereby a uniformed officer can conduct a no-knock search. Why? Because in every case in Iowa I’ve ever worked on and every case in Omaha I ever worked on… uniformed officers were used in No Knock Search Warrant Execution. If you add “I look like a regular guy” to “I don’t have to announce myself”… everyone would immediately assume bad guys breaking in. That’s just the LOGICAL expectation.
FOURTH why in the fuck are they performing a no-knock at 1:00 a.m.???!!! A reason could be that they knew Ms. Taylor was a health care worker and would be home from her shift at 1, so that is likely when the suspect would be there to see her. But the fact that they didn’t know the suspect was no longer seeing her or dating her suggests knowing her profession or movements is a HUGE step too far!! So, the only reason is the “surprise and fog” factor. This isn’t bad per se, but 1 a.m. is a fucked up time to use it. In Omaha, our officers did this between 5 and 7 a.m. Suspects that work the late hours are getting home and are tired. Suspects that work a regular 9 to 5 or take care of their kids are just getting up and groggy. Suspects that just kind of “laze about and exist” are either coming down from their highs or are asleep. The five a.m. to seven a.m. hours for a “surprise and fog” warrant execution (1) still completes the desired objective; (2) is CONSIDERABLY less likely to be seen as a burglary, rape, or criminal action.

AND THAT, ultimately, is what I come back to. Isn’t (especially Conservative) America’s whole schtick that if someone is breaking into my house at 2 a.m., I’m going to shoot them, and keep shooting them until my clip is empty. Isn’t that… like… the 2nd Amendment Cult’s MOTTO?!?!
But when a black man uses that same mentality? We call him a criminal.
And here is the most FUCKED UP THING OF ALL....
IF the officers warrant wasn’t invalidated prior to execution? BF shooting at men dressed in plain clothes breaking into the place at 1 a.m..... would have been guilty of a crime. He successfully struck an officer with a bullet from his gun… if that break in had been legal, then he just assaulted an officer with a deadly weapon!!
And some people in America read that and think “GOOD! He shouldn’t be shooting at cops!”
And some people in America read that and think “Shit! I would have done the same! Guys breaking in at 1 a.m.? I would have told them to leave or I’d shoot!”
And some people in America read that and think “This would have never happened to a White Dude.”
And some people in America read that and think “Wow. We need to re-examine the gun laws in this country.”
And some people in America read that and think “We need to seriously reconsider how policing is done!!”

But at the end of the day? ALL that’s being heard is “Black Lives Matter” versus “Blue Lives Matter”. And the FACTS… the specific things that went wrong and the nuances we need to examine in order to maybe fix the system or at least discuss exactly how it’s broken? That gets drowned out, goes away, becomes “too complicated” for the discussion. And all that’s being heard is simply Bumper Sticker Slogans and Hate Campaigns. And that’s how the world burns. Because we no longer have the patience, intelligence, confidence to sit down, examine what’s wrong, and try to fix it together. The people in power figured out that as long as everything can be boiled down into Two Sides; keep it as simple and divisive as possible, and we never have to do anything about it. We keep power while half of people say “THIS is the problem” and the other half say “NOT THIS is the problem” and since nobody agrees on what the problem is… nobody cares that the people with power aren’t working on solutions.

And that’s something I blame on both parties. Under W., all I heard from Democrats was how much they hated W. Every once in a while, I’d hear policy discussions and plans and attempts to actually do their jobs. But a lot of it was just Anti-W stuff. Under Obama, it got 10 times worse. All I heard from ANY Republican was how Obama was the worst president ever and they hated him and everything he stood for and would never ever ever ever work with him or allow anything he did to stand! And that’s how we got Donald Trump. Because the GOP wanted power, wanted to maintain and expand their power, and undo everything Obama ever did. Trump is extremely good at being divisive and dumbing things down so much that even if you’ve never heard of the Department of the Interior, you can feel like you know enough about what’s going on in the world to have a passionate, valid opinion. And that’s how we got here. And that’s why things like Breonna Taylor’s murder is such a microcosm of exactly how we got here. Because it isn’t Nuanced Discussion of Police Policy and Procedure. It isn’t a discussion about how we make a Justice System that serves the people and protects Americans from violence whether that violence is committed by criminals or cops. It’s all been boiled down. “Say her name!” versus “So you just want dead cops?!” And all the while the people who pushed and prodded and poked and did everything they could to get us in this exact position?? Make a shit load of money, keep their power, and burn down a little bit more of America and Democracy.