My babies, I am le tired.
This is the sixth post in what I thought would be a five-part series on the ACAB case for weaksauce police reform.
Last time I wrote about punishing police obfuscating. Obviously one of the biggest ways police obfuscate is by straight-up lying. So I went into my Pocket and started reading the stories I’d tagged about this when I came across a story about Breonna Taylor.
That story alone is going to require a few posts to tell.
But I want to start with what we know about the evening police killed Breonna Taylor.
At about 12:40 a.m. on March 13, 2020 Kenneth Walker and Breonna Taylor were in bed asleep in her apartment in the South End of Louisville. Louisville Police officers were in place just outside her apartment. Shortly thereafter, officers began pounding on her door. Between 45 seconds and a minute later, officers began to break into Taylor’s apartment with a battering ram.
Walker, a licensed gun owner, grabbed his gun. Taylor and Walker pulled on clothes. Walker went to answer the door. As Walker left the bedroom, the cops’ battering ram broke Taylor’s door off its hinges.
Walker fired. Officer Mattingly was shot in the thigh.
Officer Mattingly and detectives Hankison and Cosgrove fired a combined 32 rounds that evening. Myles Cosgrove shot at Taylor 16 times. Hankison fired 10 rounds into Taylor's apartment through a covered glass door and window. Hankison also fired shots into Taylor's neighbor's apartments. Three of those rounds traveled into an adjacent apartment, inside which were a man, a pregnant woman, and a 5-year-old.
Officers’ bullets hit Taylor six times in all. The fatal shot hit Taylor at approximately 12:43 a.m.
After shooting her, police made no effort at any time to help Taylor. They didn't call dispatch about Taylor being inside the apartment until 1:10 a.m. — nearly half an hour after shooting her and well after she was dead.
It is my intense displeasure to inform you that this is only the very beginning of this story. Please stay tuned and bear with me for what this story leaves out, and what happened next.
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