Breonna Taylor (Courtesy of Taylor Family attorney Sam Aguiar via AP)
On March 13, three plainclothes officers of the Louisville Police Department, driving and unmarked car, burst into an apartment where Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping. They were executing a no-knock warrant as part of a drug investigation. None of the three had body cameras.
Believing it to be a home invasion, Walker, who has a concealed carry permit, opened fire, wounding one of the three officers.
The cops shot back, hitting Taylor eight times and killing her. Walker survived and was charged with attempted murder of the police officers…non-uniformed men who Walker says burst in on them in the middle of the night. He reasonably thought the three were home invaders. The charges against Walker were later dropped.
Yesterday, the city agreed to pay Taylor’s family $12 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. Here’s the Associated Press’s report on the settlement:
By Dylan Lovan, AP
Months after the police killing of Breonna Taylor thrust her name to the forefront of a national reckoning on race, the city of Louisville agreed to pay the Black woman’s family $12 million and reform police practices as part of a settlement announced Tuesday.
But Taylor’s mother and others who have taken up her cause said much more must be done to right the wrongs of racial injustice in America.
“Please continue to say her name,” Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, declared at an emotional news conference, evoking the call that has become a national refrain for those outraged by the shooting and police violence.
Taylor’s death sparked months of protests in Louisville and calls nationwide for the officers to be criminally charged. The state’s attorney general, Daniel Cameron, is investigating police actions in the March 13 fatal shooting.
“I cannot begin to imagine Ms. Palmer’s pain, and I am deeply, deeply sorry for Breonna’s death,” said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer in announcing the terms of the lawsuit settlement.
Standing nearby as the mayor spoke, Palmer said the police reforms were not enough.
“We must not lose focus on what the real job is, and with that being said, it’s time to move forward with the criminal charges, because she deserves that and much more,” Palmer said. “As significant as today is, it’s only the beginning of getting full justice for Breonna.”
The lawsuit, filed by Palmer in April, accused police of using flawed information when they obtained a “no-knock” warrant to enter the 26-year-old woman’s apartment. Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were roused from bed by police, and Walker said he fired once at the officers, thinking they were intruders. Investigators say police were returning fire when they shot Taylor several times. No drugs were found at her home.
Dissatisfaction with the settlement extended to “Injustice Square” in downtown Louisville, where demonstrators have gathered daily for 113 days, demanding justice for Taylor. Some who listened to the announcement over a loudspeaker near a memorial for Taylor said the price for a life seemed low, the promised reforms too little and too late.
“It’s just not enough,” said Holly McGlawn, who noted how much Taylor might have made had she lived. She was young, she could have worked for another 40 or 50 years, she said.
“You can’t put a price on a Black woman being able to sleep at night and know she’s not going to get murdered,” McGlawn said.
“Justice delayed is justice denied. There was a better way to handle this,” agreed Shameka Parrish-Wright who has been part of the daily demonstrations where the city often faced peaceful protesters with force. “I’m hearing apologies now that should have happened early on.”
Tamika Palmer, mother of Breonna Taylor, center, speaks during a news conference Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020 in Louisville, Ky. Beside Palmer is attorney Ben Crump at left and attorney Lonita Baker at right. Palmer briefly spoke at Metro Hall Tuesday afternoon during a press conference to announce a $12 million settlement to Breonna Taylor’s estate. Taylor was shot by Louisville police in March during a botched execution of a search warrant. (Matt Stone/Courier Journal via AP)
Palmer left the news conference with one of her attorneys, Ben Crump, and met with protesters at the nearby park. She surveyed the original art of her daughter, prayed and wiped away tears.
She had just two words to say: “Pressure applied,” a saying her daughter often used as an emergency medical tech.
Crump said the $12 million payout is the largest such settlement given out for a Black woman killed by police.
The settlement, “sets a precedent for Black people,” he said. “When (police) kill us we expect full justice. We expect justice for the civil rights that you took from this human being. And then we expect full justice from the criminal justice system.”
In the time since Taylor’s shooting, her death — along with George Floyd and others — has become a rallying cry for protesters seeking a reckoning on racial justice and police reform. High-profile celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and LeBron James have called for the officers to be charged in Taylor’s death.
Palmer’s lawsuit accuses three Louisville police officers of blindly firing into Taylor’s apartment the night of the raid, striking Taylor several times. One of the officers, Jonathan Mattingly, went into the home after the door was broken down and was struck in the leg by the gunshot from Walker.
The warrant was one of five issued in a wide-ranging investigation of a drug trafficking suspect who was a former boyfriend of Taylor’s. That man, Jamarcus Glover, was arrested at a different location about 10 miles (16 kilometers) away from Taylor’s apartment on the same evening.
The settlement includes reforms on how warrants are handled by police, Mayor Fischer said.
Other reforms seek to build stronger community connections by establishing a housing credit program to encourage officers to live in certain low-income areas in the city. Officers will also be encouraged to perform two paid hours of volunteer work every two weeks in the communities where they serve. The city will also track police use-of-force incidents and citizen complaints.
The city has already taken some other reform measures, including passing a law named for Taylor that bans the use of the no-knock warrants. Police typically use them in drug cases over concern that evidence could be destroyed if they announce their arrival.
Fischer fired former police chief Steve Conrad in June and last week named Yvette Gentry, a former deputy chief, as the new interim police chief. Gentry would be the first Black woman to lead the force of about 1,200 sworn officers. The department has also fired Brett Hankison, one of the three officers who fired shots at Taylor’s apartment that night. Hankison is appealing the dismissal.
The largest settlement previously paid in a Louisville police misconduct case was $8.5 million in 2012, to a man who spent nine years in prison for a crime he did not commit, according to news reports.
Nice outcome, but a cold comfort for those that loved her…
“Nice outcome”
How is it nice that all the innocent people of Louisville are screwed over to pay for the wrongdoing of a judge and three police officers? The guilty walk off with no consequences and the taxpayers are left holding the bag.
It is good that the city admitted wrongdoing. It is also good that the innocent young woman was vindicated. It is good that there is some sort of price for murdering people in their own homes.
The judge who issued the bad warrant, and the officers who gunned down the girl should be behind bars.
Because the people of Louisville are not innocent. The people of Louisville are responsible.
Because we all get exactly the government we will tolerate.
This civil judgment is entirely separate from any potential criminal indictment.
Police pensions should be converted to defined contribution plans instead of guaranteed benefits. Then, all payouts for wrongful death, negligence, and other civil rights violations should be the responsibility of the police, and paid for out of their pension fund.
Jim, I’m totally good with that.
But the taxpayer should shell out as well. The police are hired and operate under the authority of the local government. The pay, benefits, authority and qualified immunity all come from their employer, which is ultimately the taxpayer.
We, as citizens and taxpayers, set the conditions for law enforcement. If we are left out of the chain of liability, we have less of an incentive to enforce change when necessary.
The problem with that is that we’re left out of the chain of knowledge. You can’t vote for or against something that you don’t know is happening.
The government had said the evidence needed to convict (thereby charge) was intentionally destroyed by the police. Therefore, the DA cannot bring the criminals to justice. Hence the very long “investigation” that appears to be more of a intentional delay until elections are over.
So here you go, millions of dollars from the forced tax payers, that they will have to pay when cops start writing more tickets to offset the loses in “revenue.” Yay, sweet American justice.
Hey now….. I’m not responsible for this BS liberal POS Mayor McBike Lane Greg “the criminal lover” Fisher…..
The elections are corrupted here and it’s been Democrats for 40+ years….
100% correct! The individuals involved should have to pay – not the taxpayers!
Are you suggesting that all the people involved here with the no-knock entry warrant should lose their pensions to pay this woman’s family?
I can’t agree with that. This was “business as usual”, and it went wrong.
Now, it never should have been “business as usual”, but the LEOs involved were only doing as trained. The fault goes back to “the war on drugs” and the fast and loose way that judges, politicians, and Law Enforcement departments have been acting in order to get their share of confiscated money and goods.
This needs to be stopped. These funds should not go to the agencies involved, as a matter of fact, the government needs to have stricter standards before they can take and spend the money, I feel that any monies taken(after going to court to attach it), should go to drug treatment centers – freeing up beds in county jails and actually doing something for drug abusers.
rt66paul
“but the LEOs involved were only doing as trained.”
Do you have any evidence of this?
Whenever I go to someone’s home I call first and if I am not familiar with the location I double check the address before going on the premises. Just common courtesy Law Enforcement should extend to a residence. Numerous checks and verification should be made before using surprise force to make entry.
Due to the circumstances and mega stupidity resulting in death and injury $12,000,000.00 should be the down payment.
Just the other day another forced entry went south in Houston when the door to the home of a retired police officer was broken down. Fortunately no one was injured and the correct house was across the street.
If the 12 million doesn’t send a message I wonder if Chef Ramsay is available for overhauling such embarrassing, sloppy Law Enforcement?
Regarding who pays, I expect that the city likely carried insurance. As to what the limits of liability of the insurer are, not having seen the policy itself, no way of telling. As to the taxpayer, they are likely shielded via insurance coverage, though it is ultimately the taxpayer who pays the insurance premiums. As to promised reforms, they had best be gotten in writing, and notarized too. Pre election promises are to easily, to often forgotten, strange to note.
Otherwise, exactly what was the basis for the issuance of the No Knock Warrant. Exactly what statements were made to the issuing judge, and by whom. What actual evidence in support of claimed violations was presented to the judge. Regarding possible fault on the part of the issuing judge, these questions must be answered, fully and in detail. As to the possibility of criminal charges and prosecution being brought against the involved officers, that is possible, but I would not suggest holding one’s breath waiting. Others may well differ here, and who knows, they might be right.
“Debbie W. says:
September 16, 2020 at 12:49
Whenever I go to someone’s home I call first and if I am not familiar with the location I double check the address before going on the premises. Just common courtesy Law Enforcement should extend to a residence. Numerous checks and verification should be made before using surprise force to make entry.”
This was not the wrong house anymore than Michael Brown had his ‘hands up.’
It was the right house. A judge signed a warrant for that house based on evidence. Possibly not enough evidence. But the warrant was signed and executed according to law. Should it have been? Is it worth raiding residences for this sort of thing? Different question.
rt66paul says: “Are you suggesting that all the people involved here with the no-knock entry warrant should lose their pensions to pay this woman’s family?”
Well, yes, actually, they should lose their pensions. No-knock raids are unconstitutional BS. Everyone involved in a no-knock raid should lose their pensions, including the judge who signed off on it. I want to see qualified immunity ended thoughout the United States. Podunk small towns, larger cities, and major cities – it all needs to end. Local, state, and federal levels, just stop it. Take away their immunity, and make everyone pay. When cops and judges end up destitute on the street as a result of their bad decisions, then something close to justice will have been served.
Look where we are today, with a nation full of protestors and rioters, protesting just this sort of nonsense. They can’t be ignored, anymore. Sacrifice the very people who created the situation, and I’m good.
You are out of date with your information. Breonna Taylor was indeed under investigation. She was suspected of receiving packages and holding money for her ex-boyfriend, who was a drug dealer. She visited him in jail. She spoke to him on the phone from jail. He’s on tape saying she handled his money.
The police didn’t serve a no-knock warrant. Her current boyfriend admitted he heard the knock—as did the neighbors. The police identified themselves and her current boyfriend shot a police officer. They opened fire and missed.
Seems that there is some question regarding circumstances, and information. You might have better information than I.
The “current boyfriend” said he heard a knock, then the door being kicked in. No mention of “We are the police”.
The drug dealer was offered a get out of jail free plea deal IF he would implicate Taylor. He turned it down saying she was not involved.
Contrary to what other have said, Taylor had not been convicted in a court of law, so yes she was innocent.
This could have been avoided by 1) Serving the warrant when the citizens are awake. 2) Knocking and announcing then WAITING until the door is opened. Present the warrant and allow the citizen to read it then serve it like a civilized human, not some gung ho roid addled thug. 3) Don’t fire blindly into a residence when you have no clue who is in the residence and who is in your line of fire.
All cops on scene should die in Eddyville. PERIOD.
The cops said the ID’d themselves. But we all know that cops lie as naturally as they breathe. No body cam? Fine send all cops on the raid to the death room at Eddyville. They murdered a citizen and must forfeit their own lives.
Citations? The best citations would be the body cameras that no one wore while they were breaking and entering a building where they didn’t belong.
IMO, people being served a warrant are at least entitled to (A) body-cams on the officers and (B) announcing yourself with a loudspeaker (“THIS IS THE POLICE. WE HAVE A WARRANT.”). I’m curious what they said and how loud the knock was. A knock would wake me up, but I have a spouse that could sleep through anything.
^^^^^THIS^^^^^^
These people DON’T DESERVE A PENNY…
… YOU BETTER BE DAM SURE IF THESE WERE WHITE PEOPLE, THERE WOULD BE NO PAY OUT TO THE FAMILY….. MATTER OF FACT, THERE GOVERNMENT WOULD COME DOWN HARD ON THE FAMILY AS BEING ASSOCIATED WITH DRUGS AND CRIMINAL ACTIVITY….
BUT..
SINCE ITS BLACKS, THE CORRUPT GOVERNMENT IS PAYING THESE CRIMINALS AND THEIR FAMILIES MONEY FOR THE CRIMES THEY COMMIT….
IT’S UNREAL, AND THESE GOVERNMENT INFILTRATORS SHOULD BE STOPPED BY FORCE IF NECESSARY…. THESE CORRUPT POS NEED TO BE DEPOSED FROM THEIR POSITIONS AND SENT TO THE SHOWERS….
BABOONEONNA: You are calling a human being a “baboon”? Could you find something a little more bigoted?
I gotta agree with Art. Also we don’t even know that those now wealthy family remembers were even good to her. This is a crappy result that just helps perpetuate no knock insanity and costs the public unnecessarily.
“How is it nice that all the innocent people of Louisville are screwed over to pay for the wrongdoing of a judge and three police officers? The guilty walk off with no consequences and the taxpayers are left holding the bag.”
That’s the cold comfort I was referring to.
Money, instead of a scalp…
Perhaps a 50/50 split. Half from the general taxpayers in the region (who, as jwtaylor expressed further above, voted their government into office) and half from the LE pension plan. LEOs might be a bit more pensive about carrying out dubious orders if they know their own money is on the line.
I would not take the millions. I wouldn’t put a price on a family member like that. I would want the cops in prison for life or publicly executed. I wouldn’t take tax payer’s money in an attempt to wash away the loss of family.
Of course the lawyers are super happy they just walked in a few weeks ago and walked out with millions.
“I would not take the millions. I wouldn’t put a price on a family member like that.”
HA! Easy for you to say since you don’t figure to collect any of the damages.
I don’t care about money. I didn’t grow up with much. Money isn’t everything. For most of my life I ate one meal a day, wore the same shoes until they were full of holes, got a haircut months apart, etc. Some money would have been nice for medial treatments…
If you want money you can get it, but you might have to sacrifice many more important things to do so. A lot of things are more important than having enough fiat currency to be a spoiled entitled western with first world problems.
I wouldn’t want to make a lot of peoples’ life harder by taking tax money because someone else did something wrong. I don’t want to further the injustice and commit my own acts of immorality. It’s much easier to be a socialist/communist and take from the collective with an entitled attitude.
I absolutely would take the money. Anybody who says they wouldn’t is either a farking idiot or has never been poor.
Besides, if the money seems tainted, there are any number of ways to wash the stain away.
Hire attorneys and sue every jerkwad who was involved. Use it to campaign for office. Donate it to the campaigns of people who can remove the offending parties from office and fix the bad laws and policies that led to her death. If violence is your bag, buy a great rifle, train with it, murder all the bastards, and then use the rest to pay for your own defense. Donate it to Black Lives Matter (no, please don’t do that, it’s just another stain). Buy her an amazing tombstone. Have masses of flowers delivered to her grave annually. Donate the money to a cause your family member believed in. Use it to live a life she would’ve approved of. Give it to the rest of the family. Etc., etc.
Liar
no-knock raids have always been a bad idea…and put everyone involved at risk…
This is a pet peeve of mine. Kenneth Walker’s having a concealed carry permit should not have anything to do with any part of this saga. Kentucky has been a constitutional carry state since 06/27/19. Before that, open carry, home carry, and vehicle carry were all permitless and still are to Kentucky residents.
Walker’s use of a firearm to protect himself and Breonna Taylor has absolutely nothing to do with him having a concealed carry permit. To me the narrative has always been that if Walker did not have a concealed carry permit he would still be in jail. That is just wrong.
I have yet to hear a sensible explanation as to why the officers in this case haven’t been charged with a single crime. At the very least, reckless endangerment is warranted.
Two words: “qualified immunity.” That is, the tautological position that a law enforcer comitting a crime on the job hasn’t committed a crime, unless he didn’t think he was doing his job. In other words, to get so much as a reckless endangerment charge, let alone the varously third to first degree murder charge everyone from the door kickers to the chief of police to the issuing judge deserves, you would have to prove that each of them individually didn’t believe they were doing their job.
End qualified immunity, full stop. No exceptions. I’m no BLM terrorist, but I don’t see how policing can get any worse in this country either. At best we have incompetence at the department level, and at worse we have organized crime calling itself law enforcement.
There is a slightly higher bar than that. The officer must be doing what he thinks is his job, and doing that job in accordance with his training.
I may know it is my job to detain a suspect. But if I was taught to never choke a suspect, and I choose to detain a suspect by choking that suspect, and that suspect dies, so does my immunity from prosecution.
Which is why police training is so criminal. If you train them to be criminals and you write policy and “case law” to allow it they will act as the criminals they are knowing there is no repercussions, which builds a brotherhood of immoral men. That’s how a corrupt government works under the cover of legitimacy.
Every time something is done to a member of society that is immoral the cops say it was justified because the cops followed their training and were within policy. And when they violate the constitution they reference “case law” as their permission to do what they want regardless of written laws.
Agreed. Similarly, many in my profession (public education) that have gotten in trouble, with a well-intended act to help a student, was because they acted outside the scope of their contract. Skilled leaders can and should speak often with subordinates about what they will be tempted to do, but should be weary of. “The road to hell, etc. etc.” -Y’all know the rest.
This.
I support law enforcement and the tough job they do. I personally know several LEOs quite well. They are good people and we have each other’s backs. I’d take any of them in a firefight.
But we need to greatly tighten qualified immunity and get rid of no-knocks, civil forfeiture, quotas, and the “hunch” unwarranted vehicle searches (or cops that tell people they can’t refuse a search). Get rid of all the lies cops can legally tell people who, more often than not, don’t know any better. “It’ll be better for you if you just tell me what happened now before your lawyer gets here.” One of many.
For some time now we’ve been OK with cops acting like the criminals they pursue in order to be more successful. We glorified this with all those tired cop flicks of the last quarter of the 20th century (and into today) where the “good guys” have to break the rules imposed on them in order to catch the “bad guys.” This, in both fiction and reality, needs to stop.
+1
Don’t say anything positive or take a reasonable middle way approach to altering policing. It’ll fall on deaf ears here. I just can’t wait until equal parts pressure from the right and left make policing with any sort of reasonable and constitutional effectiveness untenable while also making policing such a massively distasteful and undesirable career (if that’s possible at this point) that we’ll all get the policing we deserve.
It remains to be seen but I see the only two options being a crime wave and descent into 70’s NYC level nation-wide where it will fester for decades or in perpetuity, or the same scenario where there is a reactionary whiplash after several years and we end up at the opposite pole with Megacity 1 style Judges patrolling the streets with the approval of the public.
Prepare to be pilloried, my friend. Being logical and honest in the Time of Political Correctness and ACAB is a dangerous occupation.
It is patently obvious that those who have the least knowledge of what policing actually entails want to have the most control over it, and to place the most restrictions upon it. It’s similar to a four-year-old child giving advice on how to disassemble an engine to a professional mechanic.
They are like the City Council of Minneapolis, who, after voting to basically defund and dismantle their police force a month ago, are shocked, SHOCKED I say, to discover that violent crime in their city has risen exponentially, and are demanding that their chief of police explain how such a thing could ever happen–especially after some 100 officers have retired or resigned, a 50% increase.
If you make it so that any human error committed by a peace officer suddenly becomes a crime, and a mistake in the heat of the moment that results in a bad outcome becomes a felony, then don’t expect a lot of proactive policing. If you want your police armed with nothing more than kind words, sympathetic gestures, and social work, then expect more madness and death in society at large. If you tell prospective officers that they will be vigorously prosecuted at the whim of Social Justice Warriors who hate their very existence should they err, then don’t expect a lot of volunteers for the job.
Then, when suddenly there ARE no more police, as nobody’s stupid enough to expose themselves and their families to that sort of liability for a few measly bucks, the ‘armcbair experts’ who get their training in dealing with violent people and deadly conflict from Mother Earth News, can handle whatever comes.
I’m SO glad that I’m out of it.
And any judge who approves warrants to raid five homes in a total of 12 minutes should be removed for misconduct. It’s simply not enough time to give the evidence for the search an even cursory examination. A rubber-stamped home invasion.
It wasn’t 1 team hitting all 5 houses. There was plenty of time to spend at each. It is questionable of whether the extra manpower used for the raids was properly prepared. Reports from Walker and the neighbors consistently say that the officers knocked but didn’t announce themselves as police. They were in plainclothes.
The raid on her apartment was considered low-risk — she wasn’t suspected of dealing, but her address was linked to a suspected drug dealer, and she had been seen with him recently.
I heard the DA or AG said the cops destroyed the necessary evidence to charge the criminals for the homicide. They don’t want to charge, but they also don’t want to announce they don’t want to charge because of the rioting and elections. So they cough up millions of tax payers’ money to appease the family and lawyers in an attempt to silence the situation. Very typical, of course predictable.
Because they didn’t commit a crime.
If we put you in a situation where it’s your job to bust through a door and someone starts shooting at you, you aren’t going to do any better unless you happen to be a tier 1 operator etc etc
The crime here, if we find one, is (a) that the search warrant was sought and signed at all (the judge took a couple minutes to look at it) and (b) that the state sends police to knock down doors looking for drug evidence.
What followed- a homeowner shooting what he (allegedly) thought were intruders- is an eventual result of that policy. And the police shooting back is ALSO a result of that action. And someone else getting hit? That’s what happens. It’s not like the movies.
“If we put you in a situation where it’s your job to bust through a door ”
That’s the problem. There are so very few times when this should happen – like a hostage situation or an armed robbery standoff or some such – that we shouldn’t be reading about them every other week or so. Everyone involved is guilty of unconstitutionally infringing on citizen’s rights. Congress, as well as every state legislature needs to write laws stopping the idiocy. Congress and every state legislature also needs to write the laws putting an end to qualified immunity. The cop on the beat doing an honest job needs very few protections that aren’t afforded to you and to me.
Bravo! Well stated, and reflects my thoughts perfectly. This is what we desperately NEED to happen in this country.
“… The warrant was one of five issued in a wide-ranging investigation of a drug trafficking suspect who was a former boyfriend of Taylor’s. That man, Jamarcus Glover…”
Jamarcus Glover used to live with Breonna Taylor. Given her work with the police department, why was she associated with him? Situations like this are always more complicated than first reported.
The meme being pushed by the press and the BLM agitators is that these white cops woke up that morning and decided to kill Breonna Taylor because she was an innocent black woman. It’s a slanderous lie.
You’re correct. They woke up with no thought whatsoever for the individual american citizen they were fulling willing to smoke if they dared to act like a citizen. THAT’s the actual problem. Thoughtless, unaccountable lethal force applied in situations where there should be no law to execute. ALL drug laws(in regards to consenting adults), like ALL gun laws are infringements and only serve to create criminals out of thin air.
$12mm not enough??? Like, yeah, she would have earned more working as an EMT…Right. Payment still doesn’t make the police wrong into a right, but that is taxpayer money they are throwing at a problem to make it go away. Should have come from the officers and no-knock approving officials’ personal pockets.
Years ago when they were debating the idea of making these unconstitutional home invasion warrants legal, there were sane people arguing that these would be abused and innocent would be killed. This case is one of many that have happened because of this foolishness. The other stupid thing they did was to begin the unconstitutional property seizures. The excuse was to use this proposed ” law ” to seize the property of ” drug kingpins”. Again, sane people warned that this was unconstitutional and would be abused and used for minor offences as well. Now they are confiscating vehicles for not having proof of auto insurance. Remember the saying about the camel getting it’s nose in the tent ? Well the whole herd of camels is now inside the tent and defecating on the Constitution.
Losing a car for just forgetting to carry the card would be unjust, but it doesn’t happen.
Instead of fining people for refusing or forgetting to wear a seat belt (which, by itself, doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime), it makes perfect sense to heavily fine uninsured motorists (who cost us billions).
Confiscation is just the natural and self-evident response to the “I can’t afford it!” copout i.e. “I deserve exemption from adult responsibility not despite, but BECAUSE of, the fact that I’m a lazy POS.” “But you can afford a CAR!”
The townspeople are responsible because they vote for the people who implement the policies that lead to this kind of thing. Nobody takes voting seriously.
$0 years ago, when I told my father that homes in the nicer areas of LA Co would be close to/if not $1,000,000. He said that that was crazy, a million dollars was more than a professional working would ever earn in his lifetime.
Many engineers earn $120k and more these days – so who is to say that an EMT, especially one that continues schooling, won’t make that much money over a lifetime – especially with inflation.
40 years ago
Cue the racist azzholes with “she was hanging out with a criminal” BS. With a CCL? Did the po-leece find any drug’s?!? Could they have merely waited for the boyfriend to exit the abode? Would you or I open fire on the gesta er local 5-O bursting through our doors??? Oops wrong address😕 I’m cool with cop’s doing their job. Do it right…
The thing that sucks about this is that the taxpayers of Louisville, who had nothing to do with the bad decisions made by the cops that night, will be on the hook for this one way or another. Seems like something should change with respect to that.
I also hate that BLM is lumping her in with the rest of the thugs they’re rioting over. Unlike them, she in no way contributed to the circumstances that led to her death.
It sucks that the people of Louisville have to pay for the wrongdoing of judges and officers. It also sucks that the people of Louisville have to pay for the damage done by BLM and Antifa rioters and insurrectionists.
They voted for it. Want to bet they won’t vote for the same people responsible for this shit show in the next election?
The chain of accountability leads straight back to the voters of Louisville. They elected the politicians who appointed the people who approved of and carried out the home invasion.
To paraphrase the Declaration of Independence, when our government fails us, we need to replace it. We need to elect people who respect our rights and don’t create needless liabilities that we wind up paying for.
The city succumbed to media blackmail. The police did not shoot the victim. The police are the most highly trained and professional users of firearms. This event was obviously the work of crazed, alt-right, fascist, KKK, NRA, Koch, Federalist Society, Republican, OFWG Trump supporters trying to eliminate the one voter demographic that will never vote for a non-Democrat. Private citizens who cannot be trusted with guns. It is voter suppression, I tell you. Only manic, demented 2A believers would do such a thing, probably dressed as police. The city just couldn’t afford the public backlash, and paid to keep the calm. The Trump campaign should be forced to reimburse the city, and be declared a terrorist organization.
Workers of the world unite !
Free the Whales !
Free the internet !
Free french fries at McDonalds !!
This.
12m for one body is a bit much.
What is the lawyers cut?
The government may, in some cases, collect taxes on it as well…
Usually settlements of this type are tax exempt.
Probably between 30% and 40%.
The going rate for unlawful imprisonment seems to run about a million a year. In that situation you have your life, but I wouldn’t call it living. Seems like an actuary could calculate her life expectancy and apply a million in damages for each year she lost. If it was your loved one, how would you feel? “Yeah, her life was snuffed out by idiots, but no one’s perfect. Back the blue, rah rah rah.”
And how much will a cop’s family get when they get killed on duty? Or assassinated ? On purpose.
Oh… it’s OK because they signed up for it? B!S!
Glad for the settlement. Won’t bring her back but maybe they can do good with the money.
At least whatever they get after the lawyers take their cut .
The lawyer will probably take 30% to 40% of the settlement money as his compensation. Plus his fees and expenses.
My first thought when reading “the price for a [victim’s] life seemed low” was that the maximum price for a hero’s life – a life not lost to a mistake, but freely sacrificed for his country – is $500K. Of that, $400K is life insurance that is only disbursed if the servicemember had paid for it. Before the war got people’s attention, it was $250K. When I joined (not long before that) it was $100K.
You seemed to begin with similar thoughts about police (“B!S!”) as I have about the military, but then somehow came around to “Glad for the settlement.” Really?!
no knock raids are for el jefe grande of the lime cartel. i’d say there’s a level where the procedure is appropriate.
and i can just imagine all of the leo’s jumping at the opportunity to live in neighborhoods where they are surrounded by others that want them dead, and declare it.
like all those hasidics in palestine.
That’s fine. And the family of the dead body found in her rental car can sue her estate. Honestly, how many people have a dead body in their rental and don’t know how it got there…
I have no problem having the city pay $$$ for the sh*t they created. The city wrote the Rules Of Engagement for the local police. Also there are lot of people who refuse to hold accountable the elected black politicians who refuse to address the ROE, when blacks get killed by cops. And they only care if its a white cop.
It’s just easier to blame the white police chief of Louisville. But she was a drug runner.
Most of the shootings by police that have provoked these riots have been eminently justified. This shooting was not. It was an outage.
While the judge and the individual police officers involved in this case are guilty of gross criminal negligence if not murder, the problem is endemic. Police have become far too eager to use their tactical teams to conduct no knock home invasions and judges are far too eager to sign the warrants. This militarization of police had been justified by the Clintonion myth that the police are outgunned by the criminals. With the exception of the carnage of 2016, which President Obama incited, and the current wave of violence against police, the anti-gun propaganda is provably false. (See FBI annual publications LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS KILLED AND ASSAULTED).
It would be extremely useful if the same journalists who so eagerly demonize the police were to publicize accurate information about the true level of threat that police are confronted with. Police officers suffer a job related homicide rate that is actually lower than the homicide rate of adult male Americans and about one tenth the homicide rate suffered by African American males. (Almost all murders of blacks are committed by Blacks, so no racialist bull shit about police and the KKK hunting Blacks.). Police officers need to be vigilant and willing to employ force, even deadly force to protect themselves. However; police shouldn’t allow themselves to become patent and allow this paranoia to justify the use of excessive force.
Employing no knock search warrants, or knock as you kick the door in search warrants, in cases where there hasn’t been a violent crime committed or a violent crime in progress is unconscionable. Americans have a right to be secure in their own homes. Americans have the right to defend themselves against criminals that invade their homes. Americans have the right to not be assaulted by police officers who masquerade as criminals to execute no knock search warrants that are not justified by violent criminal behavior. If the police and the imbecile judges who routinely sign these no knock search warrants would exercise more restraint, the African American community might become more reasonable in its response when police use deadly force in cases where such force is justified.
My problem with this is simple. From the get-go this sounded like a clusterfrack. The search, the CI, the way it was handled. The cops that put this together seemed to act on little more than smoke. Now, the city shells out $12 million, except the city doesn’t have any income except from the tax payers, so who does this really hurt in the long run? Crump will get his cut, the family will have millions and the taxpayers will have a big budget hole to fill. A lot of that 12M would have been better spent in fixing the problems inside the department & with procedures.
If Louisville commits to spending many times $12 million to recruit and train better cops and get rid of bad ones, then maybe Ms. Taylor will not have died for nothing.
People with brains do not want to defund the police. They just want the police to be better.
Here here Ralph. Well said.
Justified outcome.
Can BLM not conflate this case and the others?
No knock warrants need to stop, except in very few cases with exigent circumstances.
Why hasnt any of the SJW politicians and mouthpieces debated Rand Paul’s bill to reform police?
Likely because the movement and their faux outrage has nothing to do with reform, but deconstruction and control.
As we can see nationwide, we get the government we deserve.
Breonna Taylor was knee deep in the drug game. She rented a car in which a homicide victim, who was part of her drug dealing b/f’s trap crew, was found dead in the trunk. She was no longer able to work as an EMT for the city after the murder incident. She posted bail for Glover multiple times. She handled money for him. She was seen with him, in her car, at multiple locations known as being dope spots by local LEO’s. She accepted packages to her apartment that Glover then picked up and delivered to dope houses. She wasn’t some innocent little butterfly caught in the crossfire so stop the narrative that she was. It also wasn’t a no-knock raid. It was changed to a knock and announce. The guy that shot first even said that THEY KNOCKED. You can read the leaked report on tatumreport.com.
Even Glover was caught saying on the jail phone that she got killed b/c the police found bank account and bail information with her name on it that was connected to him. He also said that Kenneth Walker was the entire reason she was dead b/c he shot first. The dope dealing felon was caught on tape saying something to the effect of “I don’t shoot at cops” and placed the blame on Walker for her death.
Don’t wanna get blasted by the police…don’t dive head first into the dope game and open fire on cops when they serve a search warrant. Pretty simple in my opinion.
nobody ever said she was an angel…[nobody rational, anyway]…but the method employed by the police was all wrong…there was no justification for it…..
The first sentence in the article is a blatant lie. The police did not execute a no knock warrant at the Taylor residence. We know this from both Mr. Walker’s statement and from the geometry of the shooting. Walker was standing at the bedroom door with Ms. Taylir standing behind him. If the cops just burst in while they were asleep how did they get to the doorway before the cops got to them? They must have skills of Michael Westen and Fiona Glenann. And we know from Walkers own statement that he took the first shot because he thought it was a home invasion and not the police. If you believe in the no knock story then the only way Walker even makes out of bed is if he was tipped off.
I suggest everybody check out Brandon Tatum’s last video on the case.
“The police did not execute a no knock warrant at the Taylor residence.”
Right. They executed an unarmed woman.
That’s right don’t let the facts interfere with the narrative. She would be alive if her current boyfriend didn’t shoot at the Police. And why would someone invade her home? Was it the Rembrandt on the wall? The Crown Jewels on her dresser? Or was it the 100 bars of gold pressed latinum under the bed? You aren’t any different than BLM scum who burn down a citie when some rapist has a run in with police.
I hope my girlfiend doesn’t hear about this, 12 million might just change her mind on how much she loves me. ,,,,,,, now what, My doorbells stopped working?
Way to much
i remember years ago as a kid reading my dad’s old soldier of fortune magazines an article by either peter kokalis (or robert k. brown) that these no knock warrants ( a new thing at the time) were going to become a scurge. the article said many innocent people will die and the practice will become corrupted quickly. and here we are.
Well the police don’t want to take a chance on you flushing the stolen lawnmower down the toilet.
Breonna Taylor wasn’t the innocent the media portrayed her as. There’s a 37 page phone log of most of the people involved calls to and from the jail proving she was involved in the drug trafficking that operated out of multiple locations, including her home. It can be found on the “officer Tatum” website (you’ll have to Google, I don’t recall the address).
A legal warrant was served and a known criminal started shooting through the door. Of course he claimed they didn’t identify themselves. He just shot at the police, got his girl killed and all that in a home full of evidence. He’s going to do whatever he can to make the police seem like they did wrong. Hmmm…who am I going to believe? The career criminal covering his butt or the multiple police officers? That’s an easy one.
Read the phone logs and you’ll see that not only was Breonna Taylor involved but also, not surprisingly, were some of the parents of the main players. Lots of people knew what was going and they were all your basic cop hating criminals so it’s no surprise the leftist medias narrative was that it was the police’s fault and not the poor innocent folks involved in dealing drugs. They were just good black people trying to make a living in a world where they were oppressed by the right wing white supremacist environment around them…uh huh.
I don’t agree with awarding $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor at all. She was involved in a criminal operation, shacked up with a major player in that criminal operation and got caught in the crossfire when her drug dealer boyfriend decided to open up on police serving a legal warrant. Absolutely nothing about that puts the city at fault and the capitulated to appease the leftist anarchists. I don’t agree with no knock warrants and they should be banned but as of that event they were lawful and that’s that.
I really hope that Breonna Taylor’s family wasn’t involved in the same business like the family of some of the others because a $12 million dollar infusion would seriously up their game.
Her boyfriend must have been an unconvicted criminal because he apparently had a ccw.
That just means he had never been convicted of a prohibiting offense.
tatumreport.com is the web site where former LEO Brandon Tatum shares news and information you won’t find in the lame stream media. A search for Officer Tatum should also turn up his youtube channel. He has some extensive videos on Breonna Taylor, some of which have been censored by youtube.
Just as was the case in the murder of Kathryn Johnston by the Atlanta PD, and the beating of barmaid Carolina Obyrcka by a Chicago cop, the go-to tactic by police is to slander the victim. The more egregious the crime against the victim, the more vicious the slander. As was the case with Johnston, police suborned perjury against Taylor.
As far as him having a carrier permit doesn’t mean anything in this day and time if u have the right connection, and money any criminal can get one, the justice system stabbed the officer’s in the back for doing their job, she knew she was harboring a criminal she had just got rid of one, for if true justice was served the city wouldn’t be paying a penny out. I wonder how much they would gotten if they killed the 3 officer’s 50-75 million
They were awake, not asleep. The boyfriend has stated that. Taylor was in the hallway, not the bedroom.
There was a knock. They heard the knock and asked who it was. The boyfriend has stated that.
They did not hear the cops identify themselves. The boyfriend has stated that.
The cops did not hear any response to the knock. The cops have stated that.
Taylor was a part of her ex’s drug business. There is plenty of evidence of that including recordings of jail house conversations with her ex, surveillance of both her apartment and the ex’s house, undercover drug buys, etc.
This was a long investigation aiming to take down the network, not just a single dealer.
This all probably comes down to two groups of people on opposite sides of a door that couldn’t hear each other.
The payout is bribe to stop rioting and destruction; There, you got your effing BS “justice”. Now leave us in peace.
I know if I was awake I wouldn’t say anything either. First thing I’d do that late at night is grab my gun and if you were going to investigate the last thing you would do is answer vocally or open the front door. Plain and simple. These cops were corrupt, I am not saying that the people they were no knocking were “innocent” either. Most likely case is they all had ties, corrupt cops got a tip and took it to the level they thought they could get away with stealing any money and drugs or whatever, like training day type shit. I personally don’t care about their race, but this case is worth getting pissed about the way corrupt cops operate. Not saying a city deserves to burn, but it certainly did work… sad but true.
Why were they awake in the middle of the night? Were they tipped off? Was Taylor flushing contraband down the toilet while Walker stood guard? Taylor was neck deep in her ex’s business.
or… watching TV?
Sure they were.
It never ceases to amaze me how people won’t adjust to new information.
First it was wrong house.
Then it was right house but the cop burst in and shot Taylor in bed but not Walker.
Next was, well Walker said he shot first and she was right behind him.
Well but she had nothing to do with her ex’s criminal enterprise and the postal Inspector lied.
Oops, she was part the gang.
Some people like Ralph never got past wrong house in her bed.
Others admit that the warrant was justified but no knock wasn’t.
Walker might be telling the truth in that he thought it a home invasion and they were using the cop ruse.
All the evidence points to the police knocked. When they got no response they broke in, Walker shot, Taylor died. The cops did no knock the stash house with five armed baddies present and no shots were fired. What does that fell you? It’s Walker’s fault, not the police but some people have agenda so it’s “hands up don’t shoot.”
If this doesn’t convince you how messed up law enforcement is in the country, then I give up. All cops are bastards means ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS.
Should come out of police pensions. After a few dips into police pensions like this, then maybe pigs would get their shit together.
Nice outcome, but a cold comfort for those that loved her…
“Nice outcome”
How is it nice that all the innocent people of Louisville are screwed over to pay for the wrongdoing of a judge and three police officers? The guilty walk off with no consequences and the taxpayers are left holding the bag.
It is good that the city admitted wrongdoing. It is also good that the innocent young woman was vindicated. It is good that there is some sort of price for murdering people in their own homes.
The judge who issued the bad warrant, and the officers who gunned down the girl should be behind bars.
Because the people of Louisville are not innocent. The people of Louisville are responsible.
Because we all get exactly the government we will tolerate.
This civil judgment is entirely separate from any potential criminal indictment.
Police pensions should be converted to defined contribution plans instead of guaranteed benefits. Then, all payouts for wrongful death, negligence, and other civil rights violations should be the responsibility of the police, and paid for out of their pension fund.
Jim, I’m totally good with that.
But the taxpayer should shell out as well. The police are hired and operate under the authority of the local government. The pay, benefits, authority and qualified immunity all come from their employer, which is ultimately the taxpayer.
We, as citizens and taxpayers, set the conditions for law enforcement. If we are left out of the chain of liability, we have less of an incentive to enforce change when necessary.
The problem with that is that we’re left out of the chain of knowledge. You can’t vote for or against something that you don’t know is happening.
The government had said the evidence needed to convict (thereby charge) was intentionally destroyed by the police. Therefore, the DA cannot bring the criminals to justice. Hence the very long “investigation” that appears to be more of a intentional delay until elections are over.
So here you go, millions of dollars from the forced tax payers, that they will have to pay when cops start writing more tickets to offset the loses in “revenue.” Yay, sweet American justice.
Hey now….. I’m not responsible for this BS liberal POS Mayor McBike Lane Greg “the criminal lover” Fisher…..
The elections are corrupted here and it’s been Democrats for 40+ years….
100% correct! The individuals involved should have to pay – not the taxpayers!
Are you suggesting that all the people involved here with the no-knock entry warrant should lose their pensions to pay this woman’s family?
I can’t agree with that. This was “business as usual”, and it went wrong.
Now, it never should have been “business as usual”, but the LEOs involved were only doing as trained. The fault goes back to “the war on drugs” and the fast and loose way that judges, politicians, and Law Enforcement departments have been acting in order to get their share of confiscated money and goods.
This needs to be stopped. These funds should not go to the agencies involved, as a matter of fact, the government needs to have stricter standards before they can take and spend the money, I feel that any monies taken(after going to court to attach it), should go to drug treatment centers – freeing up beds in county jails and actually doing something for drug abusers.
rt66paul
“but the LEOs involved were only doing as trained.”
Do you have any evidence of this?
Whenever I go to someone’s home I call first and if I am not familiar with the location I double check the address before going on the premises. Just common courtesy Law Enforcement should extend to a residence. Numerous checks and verification should be made before using surprise force to make entry.
Due to the circumstances and mega stupidity resulting in death and injury $12,000,000.00 should be the down payment.
Just the other day another forced entry went south in Houston when the door to the home of a retired police officer was broken down. Fortunately no one was injured and the correct house was across the street.
If the 12 million doesn’t send a message I wonder if Chef Ramsay is available for overhauling such embarrassing, sloppy Law Enforcement?
Regarding who pays, I expect that the city likely carried insurance. As to what the limits of liability of the insurer are, not having seen the policy itself, no way of telling. As to the taxpayer, they are likely shielded via insurance coverage, though it is ultimately the taxpayer who pays the insurance premiums. As to promised reforms, they had best be gotten in writing, and notarized too. Pre election promises are to easily, to often forgotten, strange to note.
Otherwise, exactly what was the basis for the issuance of the No Knock Warrant. Exactly what statements were made to the issuing judge, and by whom. What actual evidence in support of claimed violations was presented to the judge. Regarding possible fault on the part of the issuing judge, these questions must be answered, fully and in detail. As to the possibility of criminal charges and prosecution being brought against the involved officers, that is possible, but I would not suggest holding one’s breath waiting. Others may well differ here, and who knows, they might be right.
“Debbie W. says:
September 16, 2020 at 12:49
Whenever I go to someone’s home I call first and if I am not familiar with the location I double check the address before going on the premises. Just common courtesy Law Enforcement should extend to a residence. Numerous checks and verification should be made before using surprise force to make entry.”
This was not the wrong house anymore than Michael Brown had his ‘hands up.’
It was the right house. A judge signed a warrant for that house based on evidence. Possibly not enough evidence. But the warrant was signed and executed according to law. Should it have been? Is it worth raiding residences for this sort of thing? Different question.
rt66paul says: “Are you suggesting that all the people involved here with the no-knock entry warrant should lose their pensions to pay this woman’s family?”
Well, yes, actually, they should lose their pensions. No-knock raids are unconstitutional BS. Everyone involved in a no-knock raid should lose their pensions, including the judge who signed off on it. I want to see qualified immunity ended thoughout the United States. Podunk small towns, larger cities, and major cities – it all needs to end. Local, state, and federal levels, just stop it. Take away their immunity, and make everyone pay. When cops and judges end up destitute on the street as a result of their bad decisions, then something close to justice will have been served.
Look where we are today, with a nation full of protestors and rioters, protesting just this sort of nonsense. They can’t be ignored, anymore. Sacrifice the very people who created the situation, and I’m good.
You are out of date with your information. Breonna Taylor was indeed under investigation. She was suspected of receiving packages and holding money for her ex-boyfriend, who was a drug dealer. She visited him in jail. She spoke to him on the phone from jail. He’s on tape saying she handled his money.
The police didn’t serve a no-knock warrant. Her current boyfriend admitted he heard the knock—as did the neighbors. The police identified themselves and her current boyfriend shot a police officer. They opened fire and missed.
Seems that there is some question regarding circumstances, and information. You might have better information than I.
The “current boyfriend” said he heard a knock, then the door being kicked in. No mention of “We are the police”.
The drug dealer was offered a get out of jail free plea deal IF he would implicate Taylor. He turned it down saying she was not involved.
Contrary to what other have said, Taylor had not been convicted in a court of law, so yes she was innocent.
This could have been avoided by 1) Serving the warrant when the citizens are awake. 2) Knocking and announcing then WAITING until the door is opened. Present the warrant and allow the citizen to read it then serve it like a civilized human, not some gung ho roid addled thug. 3) Don’t fire blindly into a residence when you have no clue who is in the residence and who is in your line of fire.
All cops on scene should die in Eddyville. PERIOD.
The cops said the ID’d themselves. But we all know that cops lie as naturally as they breathe. No body cam? Fine send all cops on the raid to the death room at Eddyville. They murdered a citizen and must forfeit their own lives.
Citations? The best citations would be the body cameras that no one wore while they were breaking and entering a building where they didn’t belong.
IMO, people being served a warrant are at least entitled to (A) body-cams on the officers and (B) announcing yourself with a loudspeaker (“THIS IS THE POLICE. WE HAVE A WARRANT.”). I’m curious what they said and how loud the knock was. A knock would wake me up, but I have a spouse that could sleep through anything.
^^^^^THIS^^^^^^
These people DON’T DESERVE A PENNY…
… YOU BETTER BE DAM SURE IF THESE WERE WHITE PEOPLE, THERE WOULD BE NO PAY OUT TO THE FAMILY….. MATTER OF FACT, THERE GOVERNMENT WOULD COME DOWN HARD ON THE FAMILY AS BEING ASSOCIATED WITH DRUGS AND CRIMINAL ACTIVITY….
BUT..
SINCE ITS BLACKS, THE CORRUPT GOVERNMENT IS PAYING THESE CRIMINALS AND THEIR FAMILIES MONEY FOR THE CRIMES THEY COMMIT….
IT’S UNREAL, AND THESE GOVERNMENT INFILTRATORS SHOULD BE STOPPED BY FORCE IF NECESSARY…. THESE CORRUPT POS NEED TO BE DEPOSED FROM THEIR POSITIONS AND SENT TO THE SHOWERS….
BABOONEONNA: You are calling a human being a “baboon”? Could you find something a little more bigoted?
I gotta agree with Art. Also we don’t even know that those now wealthy family remembers were even good to her. This is a crappy result that just helps perpetuate no knock insanity and costs the public unnecessarily.
“How is it nice that all the innocent people of Louisville are screwed over to pay for the wrongdoing of a judge and three police officers? The guilty walk off with no consequences and the taxpayers are left holding the bag.”
That’s the cold comfort I was referring to.
Money, instead of a scalp…
Perhaps a 50/50 split. Half from the general taxpayers in the region (who, as jwtaylor expressed further above, voted their government into office) and half from the LE pension plan. LEOs might be a bit more pensive about carrying out dubious orders if they know their own money is on the line.
I would not take the millions. I wouldn’t put a price on a family member like that. I would want the cops in prison for life or publicly executed. I wouldn’t take tax payer’s money in an attempt to wash away the loss of family.
Of course the lawyers are super happy they just walked in a few weeks ago and walked out with millions.
“I would not take the millions. I wouldn’t put a price on a family member like that.”
HA! Easy for you to say since you don’t figure to collect any of the damages.
I don’t care about money. I didn’t grow up with much. Money isn’t everything. For most of my life I ate one meal a day, wore the same shoes until they were full of holes, got a haircut months apart, etc. Some money would have been nice for medial treatments…
If you want money you can get it, but you might have to sacrifice many more important things to do so. A lot of things are more important than having enough fiat currency to be a spoiled entitled western with first world problems.
I wouldn’t want to make a lot of peoples’ life harder by taking tax money because someone else did something wrong. I don’t want to further the injustice and commit my own acts of immorality. It’s much easier to be a socialist/communist and take from the collective with an entitled attitude.
I absolutely would take the money. Anybody who says they wouldn’t is either a farking idiot or has never been poor.
Besides, if the money seems tainted, there are any number of ways to wash the stain away.
Hire attorneys and sue every jerkwad who was involved. Use it to campaign for office. Donate it to the campaigns of people who can remove the offending parties from office and fix the bad laws and policies that led to her death. If violence is your bag, buy a great rifle, train with it, murder all the bastards, and then use the rest to pay for your own defense. Donate it to Black Lives Matter (no, please don’t do that, it’s just another stain). Buy her an amazing tombstone. Have masses of flowers delivered to her grave annually. Donate the money to a cause your family member believed in. Use it to live a life she would’ve approved of. Give it to the rest of the family. Etc., etc.
Liar
no-knock raids have always been a bad idea…and put everyone involved at risk…
This is a pet peeve of mine. Kenneth Walker’s having a concealed carry permit should not have anything to do with any part of this saga. Kentucky has been a constitutional carry state since 06/27/19. Before that, open carry, home carry, and vehicle carry were all permitless and still are to Kentucky residents.
Walker’s use of a firearm to protect himself and Breonna Taylor has absolutely nothing to do with him having a concealed carry permit. To me the narrative has always been that if Walker did not have a concealed carry permit he would still be in jail. That is just wrong.
I have yet to hear a sensible explanation as to why the officers in this case haven’t been charged with a single crime. At the very least, reckless endangerment is warranted.
Two words: “qualified immunity.” That is, the tautological position that a law enforcer comitting a crime on the job hasn’t committed a crime, unless he didn’t think he was doing his job. In other words, to get so much as a reckless endangerment charge, let alone the varously third to first degree murder charge everyone from the door kickers to the chief of police to the issuing judge deserves, you would have to prove that each of them individually didn’t believe they were doing their job.
End qualified immunity, full stop. No exceptions. I’m no BLM terrorist, but I don’t see how policing can get any worse in this country either. At best we have incompetence at the department level, and at worse we have organized crime calling itself law enforcement.
There is a slightly higher bar than that. The officer must be doing what he thinks is his job, and doing that job in accordance with his training.
I may know it is my job to detain a suspect. But if I was taught to never choke a suspect, and I choose to detain a suspect by choking that suspect, and that suspect dies, so does my immunity from prosecution.
Which is why police training is so criminal. If you train them to be criminals and you write policy and “case law” to allow it they will act as the criminals they are knowing there is no repercussions, which builds a brotherhood of immoral men. That’s how a corrupt government works under the cover of legitimacy.
Every time something is done to a member of society that is immoral the cops say it was justified because the cops followed their training and were within policy. And when they violate the constitution they reference “case law” as their permission to do what they want regardless of written laws.
Agreed. Similarly, many in my profession (public education) that have gotten in trouble, with a well-intended act to help a student, was because they acted outside the scope of their contract. Skilled leaders can and should speak often with subordinates about what they will be tempted to do, but should be weary of. “The road to hell, etc. etc.” -Y’all know the rest.
This.
I support law enforcement and the tough job they do. I personally know several LEOs quite well. They are good people and we have each other’s backs. I’d take any of them in a firefight.
But we need to greatly tighten qualified immunity and get rid of no-knocks, civil forfeiture, quotas, and the “hunch” unwarranted vehicle searches (or cops that tell people they can’t refuse a search). Get rid of all the lies cops can legally tell people who, more often than not, don’t know any better. “It’ll be better for you if you just tell me what happened now before your lawyer gets here.” One of many.
For some time now we’ve been OK with cops acting like the criminals they pursue in order to be more successful. We glorified this with all those tired cop flicks of the last quarter of the 20th century (and into today) where the “good guys” have to break the rules imposed on them in order to catch the “bad guys.” This, in both fiction and reality, needs to stop.
+1
Don’t say anything positive or take a reasonable middle way approach to altering policing. It’ll fall on deaf ears here. I just can’t wait until equal parts pressure from the right and left make policing with any sort of reasonable and constitutional effectiveness untenable while also making policing such a massively distasteful and undesirable career (if that’s possible at this point) that we’ll all get the policing we deserve.
It remains to be seen but I see the only two options being a crime wave and descent into 70’s NYC level nation-wide where it will fester for decades or in perpetuity, or the same scenario where there is a reactionary whiplash after several years and we end up at the opposite pole with Megacity 1 style Judges patrolling the streets with the approval of the public.
Prepare to be pilloried, my friend. Being logical and honest in the Time of Political Correctness and ACAB is a dangerous occupation.
It is patently obvious that those who have the least knowledge of what policing actually entails want to have the most control over it, and to place the most restrictions upon it. It’s similar to a four-year-old child giving advice on how to disassemble an engine to a professional mechanic.
They are like the City Council of Minneapolis, who, after voting to basically defund and dismantle their police force a month ago, are shocked, SHOCKED I say, to discover that violent crime in their city has risen exponentially, and are demanding that their chief of police explain how such a thing could ever happen–especially after some 100 officers have retired or resigned, a 50% increase.
If you make it so that any human error committed by a peace officer suddenly becomes a crime, and a mistake in the heat of the moment that results in a bad outcome becomes a felony, then don’t expect a lot of proactive policing. If you want your police armed with nothing more than kind words, sympathetic gestures, and social work, then expect more madness and death in society at large. If you tell prospective officers that they will be vigorously prosecuted at the whim of Social Justice Warriors who hate their very existence should they err, then don’t expect a lot of volunteers for the job.
Then, when suddenly there ARE no more police, as nobody’s stupid enough to expose themselves and their families to that sort of liability for a few measly bucks, the ‘armcbair experts’ who get their training in dealing with violent people and deadly conflict from Mother Earth News, can handle whatever comes.
I’m SO glad that I’m out of it.
And any judge who approves warrants to raid five homes in a total of 12 minutes should be removed for misconduct. It’s simply not enough time to give the evidence for the search an even cursory examination. A rubber-stamped home invasion.
It wasn’t 1 team hitting all 5 houses. There was plenty of time to spend at each. It is questionable of whether the extra manpower used for the raids was properly prepared. Reports from Walker and the neighbors consistently say that the officers knocked but didn’t announce themselves as police. They were in plainclothes.
The raid on her apartment was considered low-risk — she wasn’t suspected of dealing, but her address was linked to a suspected drug dealer, and she had been seen with him recently.
I heard the DA or AG said the cops destroyed the necessary evidence to charge the criminals for the homicide. They don’t want to charge, but they also don’t want to announce they don’t want to charge because of the rioting and elections. So they cough up millions of tax payers’ money to appease the family and lawyers in an attempt to silence the situation. Very typical, of course predictable.
Because they didn’t commit a crime.
If we put you in a situation where it’s your job to bust through a door and someone starts shooting at you, you aren’t going to do any better unless you happen to be a tier 1 operator etc etc
The crime here, if we find one, is (a) that the search warrant was sought and signed at all (the judge took a couple minutes to look at it) and (b) that the state sends police to knock down doors looking for drug evidence.
What followed- a homeowner shooting what he (allegedly) thought were intruders- is an eventual result of that policy. And the police shooting back is ALSO a result of that action. And someone else getting hit? That’s what happens. It’s not like the movies.
“If we put you in a situation where it’s your job to bust through a door ”
That’s the problem. There are so very few times when this should happen – like a hostage situation or an armed robbery standoff or some such – that we shouldn’t be reading about them every other week or so. Everyone involved is guilty of unconstitutionally infringing on citizen’s rights. Congress, as well as every state legislature needs to write laws stopping the idiocy. Congress and every state legislature also needs to write the laws putting an end to qualified immunity. The cop on the beat doing an honest job needs very few protections that aren’t afforded to you and to me.
Bravo! Well stated, and reflects my thoughts perfectly. This is what we desperately NEED to happen in this country.
“… The warrant was one of five issued in a wide-ranging investigation of a drug trafficking suspect who was a former boyfriend of Taylor’s. That man, Jamarcus Glover…”
Jamarcus Glover used to live with Breonna Taylor. Given her work with the police department, why was she associated with him? Situations like this are always more complicated than first reported.
The meme being pushed by the press and the BLM agitators is that these white cops woke up that morning and decided to kill Breonna Taylor because she was an innocent black woman. It’s a slanderous lie.
You’re correct. They woke up with no thought whatsoever for the individual american citizen they were fulling willing to smoke if they dared to act like a citizen. THAT’s the actual problem. Thoughtless, unaccountable lethal force applied in situations where there should be no law to execute. ALL drug laws(in regards to consenting adults), like ALL gun laws are infringements and only serve to create criminals out of thin air.
$12mm not enough??? Like, yeah, she would have earned more working as an EMT…Right. Payment still doesn’t make the police wrong into a right, but that is taxpayer money they are throwing at a problem to make it go away. Should have come from the officers and no-knock approving officials’ personal pockets.
Years ago when they were debating the idea of making these unconstitutional home invasion warrants legal, there were sane people arguing that these would be abused and innocent would be killed. This case is one of many that have happened because of this foolishness. The other stupid thing they did was to begin the unconstitutional property seizures. The excuse was to use this proposed ” law ” to seize the property of ” drug kingpins”. Again, sane people warned that this was unconstitutional and would be abused and used for minor offences as well. Now they are confiscating vehicles for not having proof of auto insurance. Remember the saying about the camel getting it’s nose in the tent ? Well the whole herd of camels is now inside the tent and defecating on the Constitution.
Losing a car for just forgetting to carry the card would be unjust, but it doesn’t happen.
Instead of fining people for refusing or forgetting to wear a seat belt (which, by itself, doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime), it makes perfect sense to heavily fine uninsured motorists (who cost us billions).
Confiscation is just the natural and self-evident response to the “I can’t afford it!” copout i.e. “I deserve exemption from adult responsibility not despite, but BECAUSE of, the fact that I’m a lazy POS.” “But you can afford a CAR!”
The townspeople are responsible because they vote for the people who implement the policies that lead to this kind of thing. Nobody takes voting seriously.
$0 years ago, when I told my father that homes in the nicer areas of LA Co would be close to/if not $1,000,000. He said that that was crazy, a million dollars was more than a professional working would ever earn in his lifetime.
Many engineers earn $120k and more these days – so who is to say that an EMT, especially one that continues schooling, won’t make that much money over a lifetime – especially with inflation.
40 years ago
Cue the racist azzholes with “she was hanging out with a criminal” BS. With a CCL? Did the po-leece find any drug’s?!? Could they have merely waited for the boyfriend to exit the abode? Would you or I open fire on the gesta er local 5-O bursting through our doors??? Oops wrong address😕 I’m cool with cop’s doing their job. Do it right…
The thing that sucks about this is that the taxpayers of Louisville, who had nothing to do with the bad decisions made by the cops that night, will be on the hook for this one way or another. Seems like something should change with respect to that.
I also hate that BLM is lumping her in with the rest of the thugs they’re rioting over. Unlike them, she in no way contributed to the circumstances that led to her death.
It sucks that the people of Louisville have to pay for the wrongdoing of judges and officers. It also sucks that the people of Louisville have to pay for the damage done by BLM and Antifa rioters and insurrectionists.
They voted for it. Want to bet they won’t vote for the same people responsible for this shit show in the next election?
The chain of accountability leads straight back to the voters of Louisville. They elected the politicians who appointed the people who approved of and carried out the home invasion.
To paraphrase the Declaration of Independence, when our government fails us, we need to replace it. We need to elect people who respect our rights and don’t create needless liabilities that we wind up paying for.
The city succumbed to media blackmail. The police did not shoot the victim. The police are the most highly trained and professional users of firearms. This event was obviously the work of crazed, alt-right, fascist, KKK, NRA, Koch, Federalist Society, Republican, OFWG Trump supporters trying to eliminate the one voter demographic that will never vote for a non-Democrat. Private citizens who cannot be trusted with guns. It is voter suppression, I tell you. Only manic, demented 2A believers would do such a thing, probably dressed as police. The city just couldn’t afford the public backlash, and paid to keep the calm. The Trump campaign should be forced to reimburse the city, and be declared a terrorist organization.
Workers of the world unite !
Free the Whales !
Free the internet !
Free french fries at McDonalds !!
This.
12m for one body is a bit much.
What is the lawyers cut?
The government may, in some cases, collect taxes on it as well…
Usually settlements of this type are tax exempt.
Probably between 30% and 40%.
The going rate for unlawful imprisonment seems to run about a million a year. In that situation you have your life, but I wouldn’t call it living. Seems like an actuary could calculate her life expectancy and apply a million in damages for each year she lost. If it was your loved one, how would you feel? “Yeah, her life was snuffed out by idiots, but no one’s perfect. Back the blue, rah rah rah.”
And how much will a cop’s family get when they get killed on duty? Or assassinated ? On purpose.
Oh… it’s OK because they signed up for it? B!S!
Glad for the settlement. Won’t bring her back but maybe they can do good with the money.
At least whatever they get after the lawyers take their cut .
The lawyer will probably take 30% to 40% of the settlement money as his compensation. Plus his fees and expenses.
My first thought when reading “the price for a [victim’s] life seemed low” was that the maximum price for a hero’s life – a life not lost to a mistake, but freely sacrificed for his country – is $500K. Of that, $400K is life insurance that is only disbursed if the servicemember had paid for it. Before the war got people’s attention, it was $250K. When I joined (not long before that) it was $100K.
You seemed to begin with similar thoughts about police (“B!S!”) as I have about the military, but then somehow came around to “Glad for the settlement.” Really?!
no knock raids are for el jefe grande of the lime cartel. i’d say there’s a level where the procedure is appropriate.
and i can just imagine all of the leo’s jumping at the opportunity to live in neighborhoods where they are surrounded by others that want them dead, and declare it.
like all those hasidics in palestine.
That’s fine. And the family of the dead body found in her rental car can sue her estate. Honestly, how many people have a dead body in their rental and don’t know how it got there…
I have no problem having the city pay $$$ for the sh*t they created. The city wrote the Rules Of Engagement for the local police. Also there are lot of people who refuse to hold accountable the elected black politicians who refuse to address the ROE, when blacks get killed by cops. And they only care if its a white cop.
It’s just easier to blame the white police chief of Louisville. But she was a drug runner.
https://tatumreport.com/
“MORE LEAKED EVIDENCE ABOUT BREONNA TAYLOR’S CASE” video 11 min long
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh9Czx1cmnk
Most of the shootings by police that have provoked these riots have been eminently justified. This shooting was not. It was an outage.
While the judge and the individual police officers involved in this case are guilty of gross criminal negligence if not murder, the problem is endemic. Police have become far too eager to use their tactical teams to conduct no knock home invasions and judges are far too eager to sign the warrants. This militarization of police had been justified by the Clintonion myth that the police are outgunned by the criminals. With the exception of the carnage of 2016, which President Obama incited, and the current wave of violence against police, the anti-gun propaganda is provably false. (See FBI annual publications LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS KILLED AND ASSAULTED).
It would be extremely useful if the same journalists who so eagerly demonize the police were to publicize accurate information about the true level of threat that police are confronted with. Police officers suffer a job related homicide rate that is actually lower than the homicide rate of adult male Americans and about one tenth the homicide rate suffered by African American males. (Almost all murders of blacks are committed by Blacks, so no racialist bull shit about police and the KKK hunting Blacks.). Police officers need to be vigilant and willing to employ force, even deadly force to protect themselves. However; police shouldn’t allow themselves to become patent and allow this paranoia to justify the use of excessive force.
Employing no knock search warrants, or knock as you kick the door in search warrants, in cases where there hasn’t been a violent crime committed or a violent crime in progress is unconscionable. Americans have a right to be secure in their own homes. Americans have the right to defend themselves against criminals that invade their homes. Americans have the right to not be assaulted by police officers who masquerade as criminals to execute no knock search warrants that are not justified by violent criminal behavior. If the police and the imbecile judges who routinely sign these no knock search warrants would exercise more restraint, the African American community might become more reasonable in its response when police use deadly force in cases where such force is justified.
My problem with this is simple. From the get-go this sounded like a clusterfrack. The search, the CI, the way it was handled. The cops that put this together seemed to act on little more than smoke. Now, the city shells out $12 million, except the city doesn’t have any income except from the tax payers, so who does this really hurt in the long run? Crump will get his cut, the family will have millions and the taxpayers will have a big budget hole to fill. A lot of that 12M would have been better spent in fixing the problems inside the department & with procedures.
If Louisville commits to spending many times $12 million to recruit and train better cops and get rid of bad ones, then maybe Ms. Taylor will not have died for nothing.
People with brains do not want to defund the police. They just want the police to be better.
Here here Ralph. Well said.
Justified outcome.
Can BLM not conflate this case and the others?
No knock warrants need to stop, except in very few cases with exigent circumstances.
Why hasnt any of the SJW politicians and mouthpieces debated Rand Paul’s bill to reform police?
Likely because the movement and their faux outrage has nothing to do with reform, but deconstruction and control.
As we can see nationwide, we get the government we deserve.
Breonna Taylor was knee deep in the drug game. She rented a car in which a homicide victim, who was part of her drug dealing b/f’s trap crew, was found dead in the trunk. She was no longer able to work as an EMT for the city after the murder incident. She posted bail for Glover multiple times. She handled money for him. She was seen with him, in her car, at multiple locations known as being dope spots by local LEO’s. She accepted packages to her apartment that Glover then picked up and delivered to dope houses. She wasn’t some innocent little butterfly caught in the crossfire so stop the narrative that she was. It also wasn’t a no-knock raid. It was changed to a knock and announce. The guy that shot first even said that THEY KNOCKED. You can read the leaked report on tatumreport.com.
Even Glover was caught saying on the jail phone that she got killed b/c the police found bank account and bail information with her name on it that was connected to him. He also said that Kenneth Walker was the entire reason she was dead b/c he shot first. The dope dealing felon was caught on tape saying something to the effect of “I don’t shoot at cops” and placed the blame on Walker for her death.
Don’t wanna get blasted by the police…don’t dive head first into the dope game and open fire on cops when they serve a search warrant. Pretty simple in my opinion.
nobody ever said she was an angel…[nobody rational, anyway]…but the method employed by the police was all wrong…there was no justification for it…..
The first sentence in the article is a blatant lie. The police did not execute a no knock warrant at the Taylor residence. We know this from both Mr. Walker’s statement and from the geometry of the shooting. Walker was standing at the bedroom door with Ms. Taylir standing behind him. If the cops just burst in while they were asleep how did they get to the doorway before the cops got to them? They must have skills of Michael Westen and Fiona Glenann. And we know from Walkers own statement that he took the first shot because he thought it was a home invasion and not the police. If you believe in the no knock story then the only way Walker even makes out of bed is if he was tipped off.
I suggest everybody check out Brandon Tatum’s last video on the case.
“The police did not execute a no knock warrant at the Taylor residence.”
Right. They executed an unarmed woman.
That’s right don’t let the facts interfere with the narrative. She would be alive if her current boyfriend didn’t shoot at the Police. And why would someone invade her home? Was it the Rembrandt on the wall? The Crown Jewels on her dresser? Or was it the 100 bars of gold pressed latinum under the bed? You aren’t any different than BLM scum who burn down a citie when some rapist has a run in with police.
I hope my girlfiend doesn’t hear about this, 12 million might just change her mind on how much she loves me. ,,,,,,, now what, My doorbells stopped working?
Way to much
i remember years ago as a kid reading my dad’s old soldier of fortune magazines an article by either peter kokalis (or robert k. brown) that these no knock warrants ( a new thing at the time) were going to become a scurge. the article said many innocent people will die and the practice will become corrupted quickly. and here we are.
Well the police don’t want to take a chance on you flushing the stolen lawnmower down the toilet.
Breonna Taylor wasn’t the innocent the media portrayed her as. There’s a 37 page phone log of most of the people involved calls to and from the jail proving she was involved in the drug trafficking that operated out of multiple locations, including her home. It can be found on the “officer Tatum” website (you’ll have to Google, I don’t recall the address).
A legal warrant was served and a known criminal started shooting through the door. Of course he claimed they didn’t identify themselves. He just shot at the police, got his girl killed and all that in a home full of evidence. He’s going to do whatever he can to make the police seem like they did wrong. Hmmm…who am I going to believe? The career criminal covering his butt or the multiple police officers? That’s an easy one.
Read the phone logs and you’ll see that not only was Breonna Taylor involved but also, not surprisingly, were some of the parents of the main players. Lots of people knew what was going and they were all your basic cop hating criminals so it’s no surprise the leftist medias narrative was that it was the police’s fault and not the poor innocent folks involved in dealing drugs. They were just good black people trying to make a living in a world where they were oppressed by the right wing white supremacist environment around them…uh huh.
I don’t agree with awarding $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor at all. She was involved in a criminal operation, shacked up with a major player in that criminal operation and got caught in the crossfire when her drug dealer boyfriend decided to open up on police serving a legal warrant. Absolutely nothing about that puts the city at fault and the capitulated to appease the leftist anarchists. I don’t agree with no knock warrants and they should be banned but as of that event they were lawful and that’s that.
I really hope that Breonna Taylor’s family wasn’t involved in the same business like the family of some of the others because a $12 million dollar infusion would seriously up their game.
Her boyfriend must have been an unconvicted criminal because he apparently had a ccw.
That just means he had never been convicted of a prohibiting offense.
tatumreport.com is the web site where former LEO Brandon Tatum shares news and information you won’t find in the lame stream media. A search for Officer Tatum should also turn up his youtube channel. He has some extensive videos on Breonna Taylor, some of which have been censored by youtube.
Hey everybody, just some food for thought.
https://youtu.be/ls1aN8TTd9Q
Just as was the case in the murder of Kathryn Johnston by the Atlanta PD, and the beating of barmaid Carolina Obyrcka by a Chicago cop, the go-to tactic by police is to slander the victim. The more egregious the crime against the victim, the more vicious the slander. As was the case with Johnston, police suborned perjury against Taylor.
As far as him having a carrier permit doesn’t mean anything in this day and time if u have the right connection, and money any criminal can get one, the justice system stabbed the officer’s in the back for doing their job, she knew she was harboring a criminal she had just got rid of one, for if true justice was served the city wouldn’t be paying a penny out. I wonder how much they would gotten if they killed the 3 officer’s 50-75 million
They were awake, not asleep. The boyfriend has stated that. Taylor was in the hallway, not the bedroom.
There was a knock. They heard the knock and asked who it was. The boyfriend has stated that.
They did not hear the cops identify themselves. The boyfriend has stated that.
The cops did not hear any response to the knock. The cops have stated that.
Taylor was a part of her ex’s drug business. There is plenty of evidence of that including recordings of jail house conversations with her ex, surveillance of both her apartment and the ex’s house, undercover drug buys, etc.
This was a long investigation aiming to take down the network, not just a single dealer.
This all probably comes down to two groups of people on opposite sides of a door that couldn’t hear each other.
The payout is bribe to stop rioting and destruction; There, you got your effing BS “justice”. Now leave us in peace.
I know if I was awake I wouldn’t say anything either. First thing I’d do that late at night is grab my gun and if you were going to investigate the last thing you would do is answer vocally or open the front door. Plain and simple. These cops were corrupt, I am not saying that the people they were no knocking were “innocent” either. Most likely case is they all had ties, corrupt cops got a tip and took it to the level they thought they could get away with stealing any money and drugs or whatever, like training day type shit. I personally don’t care about their race, but this case is worth getting pissed about the way corrupt cops operate. Not saying a city deserves to burn, but it certainly did work… sad but true.
Why were they awake in the middle of the night? Were they tipped off? Was Taylor flushing contraband down the toilet while Walker stood guard? Taylor was neck deep in her ex’s business.
or… watching TV?
Sure they were.
It never ceases to amaze me how people won’t adjust to new information.
First it was wrong house.
Then it was right house but the cop burst in and shot Taylor in bed but not Walker.
Next was, well Walker said he shot first and she was right behind him.
Well but she had nothing to do with her ex’s criminal enterprise and the postal Inspector lied.
Oops, she was part the gang.
Some people like Ralph never got past wrong house in her bed.
Others admit that the warrant was justified but no knock wasn’t.
Walker might be telling the truth in that he thought it a home invasion and they were using the cop ruse.
All the evidence points to the police knocked. When they got no response they broke in, Walker shot, Taylor died. The cops did no knock the stash house with five armed baddies present and no shots were fired. What does that fell you? It’s Walker’s fault, not the police but some people have agenda so it’s “hands up don’t shoot.”
If this doesn’t convince you how messed up law enforcement is in the country, then I give up. All cops are bastards means ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS.
Should come out of police pensions. After a few dips into police pensions like this, then maybe pigs would get their shit together.
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