So from your link.
One of the key challenges in investigating this case has been the lack of body camera footage depicting the raid itself.
And you want to quibble over yes it appears that at least one office had a body camera, but there has been no footage to review, meaning he either erased it (don’t know how he could do that), or more likely didn’t turn it on which begs the question why wear one.
Painful as it may be, the decision not to prosecute the officers was almost certainly correct. The officers came to the apartment with a warrant that allowed them to enter without announcing themselves. Ms. Taylor’s friend (partner, boyfriend, whatever) thought reasonably that there was a home invasion, and fired a shot. The officers returned fire.
If we want to stop incidents like this we need to look at the law on no-knock warrants, and police training on when to seek them, and on discharging weapons. Suit against the city for failure to train and supervise would probably have succeeded–which is why the family is being paid $12 million. A criminal prosecution probably would have failed.
Frustrating as it is, this looks like a case in which the law worked.
I get what you are saying. My frustration with this is how long it took, how vulnerable it makes me feel, that this keeps happening, that in the process leading up to Breonna’s death if anyone had stopped and thought “why don’t we ask her what was in the packages, or why she allowed a former boyfriend to have packages sent to her address”. There was paperwork that was fudged and incorrect; the subject of their investigation was already in custody; and when the shooting stop she’s dead, and the police wouldn’t tell her mother for over 12 hours what happened to her daughter. There was no concern for the other residents of the apartment complex.
And unless you’ve lived in a community or next to a community where a Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Atatiana Jefferson, Botham Jean, and so many other incidents happened then one gets to feel that we live an unjust society. Those that I listed happened since 2012, there are probably many more in the 8 years that I left off.
We do live in an unjust society. Apparently, the perp was behind bars. Should the cops have noticed that the people in the aparement had no criminal history and knocked? Should they have watched the apartment until it was emplty and then gone in? I suspect yes. They probably would have said they didn’t have the resources–but that suggests that the place was not sufficiently important to justify a no knock warrant. There were probably other solutions that would have saved her life.
And do we really need cops to empty their magazines every time they feel there’s a threat? I’m not a firearms expert, but count me dubious.
Oh, and as I understand it, they were slow to render assistance. For that, maybe they could and should have been charged.
Over 300 million guns on the streets and a law enforcement community heavily reliant on non college educated men in their 20s to enforce lots of stupid criminal statutes.
But you know, free our guns or give me death!