A key fact is that the police shot Taylor after her boyfriend shot at the police, thinking they were intruders. While he was fully entitled to do that, the NYT doesn’t believe in gun rights so that’s a messy fact. To make the victim seem more sympathetic, the narrative under the heading “What Happened in Louisville?” doesn’t mention Taylor‘s boyfriend shooting first. Instead, you need to go down several paragraphs to learn that fact. Which leaves the whole article deeply confused: at first you think police just started shooting for no reason, and then later you learn they shot because they were fired upon. Which of course leaves the reader with little understanding of what police actually did wrong. Were they not supposed to shoot back when Taylor’s boyfriend shot at them? Is that the problem?
Obviously nobody expects the police not to shoot back when fired upon. What the police did wrong, instead, is failing to respect black peoples’ second and fourth amendment rights. This happened in Kentucky, where if you barge into someone’s house in the middle of the night you can expect to get shot. Police barging into people’s homes in the middle of the night unannounced is fundamentally incompatible with what the Constitution and Kentucky law gives homeowners the right to do: shoot at intruders in their home. And as such the practice of serving these no-knock warrants is an infringement of that right. It leads to tragic consequences under predictable circumstances where homeowners are just exercising their rights. And of course, it’s doubtful that officers display the same callousness to the possibility of armed homeowners when it comes to policing white neighborhoods. It’s another one in a long pattern of cases where black people are murdered for daring to exercise their second amendment rights.
I paused reading your comment at "instead you need to go down several" because I wanted to test my current knowledge of this incident: almost nothing, I know, hard to believe, given the claim at the start. (I've been under a lot of stress at work, it's OK, I'm fine, thanks for asking though :) )
So I read the article... Here is the first paragraph under "What happened in Louisville?"
"Shortly after midnight on March 13, Louisville police officers, executing a search warrant, used a battering ram to crash into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American emergency room technician. After a brief confrontation, they fired several shots, striking her at least eight times."
OK - so, I feel like I completely understand this is a complicated situation, not one where the cops kicked down the door and started shooting.
1. "After a brief confrontation"
This is an obvious "and cut-to," that is, I know lots of stuff happened here. I would expect a reader who isn't completely engulfed in polarizing furor to think about this for a second like I did.
2. Gunshots after a confrontation
I think this might be contentious, or where this is all loaded up... When I see "a confrontation" followed by "eight gunshots" - I actually do assume there was some reason that a reasonable gun toting police offer might have to fire after a confrontation. To me, this sets a pretty clear context.
Let me add some more that came in later paragraphs that helped crystalize my understanding and leaves me feeling like the article here isn't really as biased as you are reading it as, though, I am not accusing you of being biased, or misreading the article. I can't begin to know all the things that contribute to your thinking, and vice-versa!
3. no-knock warrant
While this all sounded like a completely legal entry, and a normal police procedure, here are my personal "let me add some context to how I interpret this" thoughts.
- If I were a POC (I'm not), multiple plain-clothed white men with guns just stormed into my apartment. This is immediately tense. Imagine how you would react. What's going through your mind as a civilian? Keep in mind, police should be trained to do a no-knock warrant. They should be experienced and cool as a cucumber. I want this in our operators who go into dangerous situations, in fact, I expect it. You can train for danger. There is no excuse for imprecision when you are dealing with life and death, especially if, when doing it, you aren't planning to deal with life or death.
4. Her home was searched not because of an actual crime she committed, but because it was a possible drop-off location for a package involved in a crime.
This feels really weak. Investigate the location then. Stake it out. Find your target and gather more evidence. This sounds rushed, and desperate. Storming an intermediate source of evidence rather than waiting for a better opportunity? Welp, it's not my job so I honestly don't know. I'm not in law enforcement so opinions are like assholes, right?
So in summary?
I think NYT speaks to a reader who is open-minded and understands that context is important, and that these subjects are complex. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit? If someone can walk away from the article with your point of view, I must be, time to think about that.
If anyone broke down my door, I would attack them. If I had a gun, I would shoot them, I wouldn't think twice. I sit here, and have no reason to believe someone should kick in my door unless they mean me harm. Let me grant other people the same right.
I expect police to be professional. The details on how this went down are not professional. It think that is safe to say simply because of the outcome.
The police were executing a warrant for a bad person who was not the person who died. How can we accept that they were in control of the situation, and if we cannot, or we think they couldn't have been, why would we send people into such a situation?
I am very flexible when it comes to granting authorities protections and flexibility in interpreting the law. I actually, for most of my life, have had faith in the system. I can imagine a scenario where I think many objective individuals would agree a no-knock warrant would make sense, so I can agree that they might be useful. I can also agree that ill-equipped people given tools they don't comprehend, or are not thoughtful enough, or well trained enough to use, will ultimately abuse and/or misuse them.
Personally I would be questioning the need for a no knock warrant on a house that "might" have been a drug drop.
One thing I don't get, is how three officers managed to miss the guy shooting at them.
Their shots apparently hit the apartment above. With a breaching entry and an unknown target, random positioning in the horizontal plane may be expected but in the vertical plane it is definitely not. That suggests that they were holstered when they kicked in the door. Further, the gunner shot once and hit while the "police" shot many times and only managed to hit his girlfriend which suggests that they were much more panicked than someone that was asleep 1 minute before the encounter started.
what does the evidence look like when the police decided to rob you?