So Breonna was the victim of a no-knock warrant. The cops claim they identified themselves but they were under no obligation, legally speaking, to do so. And given the record of white police officers shooting people and then lying about it, 1/ THREAD
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I'm gonna believe her boyfriend, Kenneth Taylor, that they did not. BTW, he was also shot that night. The no-knock warrant was given to the police because they thought Breonna MIGHT be receiving packages for a drug dealer who lived not nearby and whom she didn't know. 2/
In other words, they could have easily a)asked her about it b)knocked c)come during the day or d)done some actual detective work during which they'd have figured this out for themselves. But they did none of these things. Instead they chose, at midnight, to bust down her door 3/
Kenneth Taylor, Breonna's boyfriend, being a licensed gun owner and doing what white gun owners recommend, had a handgun nearby, and began shooting at what he reasonably thought were intruders.He was shot, and Breonna, still in bed,was shot 8 times in the chest. EIGHT. TIMES.4/
So, put another way, what happened in that bedroom was exactly what NRA doofuses have been advocating for for years. And if this had been the home of a white person, in a white neighborhood, everything would have gone down just as those knuckle-draggers want you to think 5/
It always goes down. I've spent some time with these knuckle-draggers, and I know that they are perfectly aware of the racial implications of the stand-your-ground lawsthey've been advocating. They know that guys like Philando Castile or Kenneth Taylor can get all the licenses 6/
in the world and they will still never be seen by the cops, or by some other licensed white gun owner, like, for instance, Tucker McMichael, as anything but a perp. When I asked some of these arch conservative "pro-life" gun owners why they weren't worried about violating 7/
the sixth commandment by being willing to "light up" anyone they view as a potential threat (and since they are almost never made uncomfortable by the presence of a black body, except by their choosing and therefore a threat is anyone black or brown who shows up where he 8/
"knows perfectly well he doesn't belong--something an actual person said to me) they glibly hold forth about how the translation of the commandment is not "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is wrong. It's "Thou Shalt Not Murder" and the difference between killing and murdering is 9/
the innocence of the person being killed. Whenever I pushed back with, "but what, other than race, are you basing the presumption of guilt upon," they could never come up with an answer, mainly because the answer was too shameful to come right out and say. Or admit. 10/
But of course the answer was race, which is why, since the first stand your ground laws were passed, it has been next to impossible to prosecute a white person (usually man) for shooting a black person (also usually man) for murder, no matter how egregious the episode was. 11/
If you doubt me, go as @lucymcbath_ whose son was murdered in cold blood and had to endure not one but TWO agonizing trials to get a guilty verdict. One reason the first jury was hung was because in FL, as in most states with SYG laws, the defense need only demonstrate 12/
That the shooter had "a reasonable" fear that the victim (who never in these cases is referred to as the victim, but as the perpetrator by cops until the DA or AG decides it's a valid murder case) presented a threat. And if you get together a jury of a shooter's peers 13/
In almost any state but especially in a state like Florida, as present them with a black victim who played loud music and seemed insufficiently deferential, they will see that person as a threat 100% of the time. 14/
SYG is but one of many reasons, all connected deeply to structural, personal, political and regional racisms that Breonna died. She died also because of the cavalier way our judicial system has dispensed with the niceties of the rights of the accused, she died because of a 15/
and racialized "war on drugs" that we have long since known was ineffective at the very goal it purports to be seeking, a diminution in drug use, she died of the physical and psychological warrior-ization of police forces(demonstrated by their insistence on referring to those 16/
pesky men and women NOT in the police force as "civilians" when the police are civilians too, I mean, WTF), she died because of the impunity with which cops everywhere have consistently fired off their weapons with little to no justification, and how unwilling they are to 17/
Act in any meaningful way to minimize any of the risks of these things happening time and time and time again. She died because she was not seen as a human being, equal in rights and dignity to any random white person to whom one might compare her 18/
