A step toward justice for Breonna Taylor

Posted on August 4, 2022 by Pete

Current and Former Louisville, Kentucky Police Officers Charged with Federal Crimes Related to Death of Breonna Taylor

Charges Include Federal Civil Rights Offenses, Unlawful Conspiracies, Obstruction Offenses, and Use of Excessive Force […]

A federal grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky, returned two indictments that were unsealed today, and the Department of Justice filed a third charging document today, in connection with an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old woman who was shot and killed in her Louisville home on March 13, 2020, by police officers executing a search warrant.

“The Justice Department has charged four current and former Louisville Metro Police Department officers with federal crimes related to Breonna Taylor’s death,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Among other things, the federal charges announced today allege that members of LMPD’s Place-Based Investigations Unit falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. Taylor’s home, that this act violated federal civil rights laws, and that those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death.

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4 Responses to A step toward justice for Breonna Taylor

  1. Servetus says:
    August 5, 2022 at 9:06 pm

    Falsified affidavits have long been the sine qua non for drug enforcement. It’s encouraging that this fraud is now gaining some attention.

    The police raid occurred because the police believed that Breonna was harboring drug cash for her ex-boy friend, up to $14,000. No purported cash haul has shown up in any of the news coverage so far. Was any drug cash pocketed by the offending officers during the raid? We may never know.

    Busts in Mexico can be much more cordial in these matters. In many cases a drug bust by corrupt Mexican cops might involve confiscating half your stash for their own personal use and then wishing you on your merry way. There’s much to be said for this approach.

    By contrast, Russia will hand out a nine-year prison sentence for possession of a single cannabis vape. China still has a death penalty. If the quality of civilization were to be gauged by the severity of its drug laws and attitudes, then Russia is at rock bottom and so is China.

  2. Son of Sam Walton says:
    August 14, 2022 at 10:02 am

    A black female police chief from Charlottesville was fired by her own police force. Apparently, she was doing the right things in regards to policing and the officers didn’t like the fact she questioned their ‘Drug War Tactics’, which would limit their power. She stated that on more than one occasion, she feared for her life from her own police unit. She kicked cops out of school so they wouldn’t arrest children over behavioral issues and then she kept cops from arresting drug users while refusing to arrest the pushers . . . she also put an end to special police training that taught cops how to falsify and lie after the fact.

    19% of Law Enforcement are Veterans. 22% have a former military background. I wonder what branches are most represented or if it is equal? Because all War on Terror Veterans should hate the War on Drugs when it decided to crash into the WTC towers and help topple our economy in 2008 (since the year 2007 was the year before in regards to certain ‘Crude oil’ Iraqi laws conducted by Americans pouring billions out of our economy just so China/India can have it all) while rewarding the bankers with dozens of laundered billions and no jail time or being fired.

    There is still a lot of work to be done. Thank God for Medical Marijuana laws that can help ease the burden and pain of this still very long dangerous rocky road we’ve got to complete.

  3. Servetus says:
    August 16, 2022 at 7:09 am

    More details concerning indicted officers who knew the Breonna Taylor raid affidavit was falsified:

    …The officers who sought the warrant “knew that the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Taylor’s home contained information that was false, misleading, and out-of-date; that the affidavit omitted material information; and that the officers lacked probable cause for the search,” the indictment reads.

    One of the defendants tried to get another officer to lie and say he had previously told him that a drug dealer (Taylor’s ex-boyfriend) had used her apartment to receive packages. An officer apparently broke the ubiquitous police code of silence and revealed to prosecutors that his fellow officer asked him to lie.

    A judge issued a no-knock warrant based on the officers’ misrepresentations. The warrant specified that they did not have to knock and identify themselves as police before entering the apartment.

    This case has widely been characterized as a “no-knock” warrant incident. But before police actually conducted the search, the court issued another warrant that required them to knock and announce their presence. The issue that led to their indictment is that the police officers lied to get the warrant. […]

    https://truthout.org/articles/police-lied-to-get-the-warrant-to-search-breonna-taylors-home/

  4. Servetus says:
    September 10, 2022 at 12:28 pm

    Jeffrey St Clair tweeted:

    US Dept. of Justice, 1990 memo: “We must significantly increase forfeiture production to reach our budget target. Every effort must be made to increase forfeiture income.”

    Longer piece available at Special Master Blaster:

    …”I’m all for strictly limiting the power of the state to search your house and seize your property, as long as it’s a right enjoyed by all of us. But when has a special master ever been convened in a drug asset seizure case, where police departments have sold off houses, jewelry, boats, and cars–even before people have been convicted of crimes? There is no right to an attorney in these proceedings, which often target low-income people who exist in a cash economy. The legal standard for confiscating your entire bank account is not “beyond a reasonable doubt”, but merely a “preponderance of the evidence.” This kind of “policing for profit” happens all the time up and down the criminal justice system, from local town cops to the federal Dept. of Justice itself, which prepared a memo in 1990 saying, “We must significantly increase forfeiture production to reach our budget target. Every effort must be made to increase forfeiture income.” […] ” — Jeffrey St Clair, 9-SEP-2022

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