Yesterday Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced charges against one of the three officers who killed Breonna Taylor, an emergency medical worker who was shot when police raided her apartment on the suspicion that her ex‐boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, had received shipments of drugs at her address. The charges, three counts of wanton endangerment, were not for shooting and killing Ms. Taylor in her own home but for firing three stray rounds through a curtained window. Whether the charges, or lack thereof, are the appropriate legal response lies outside of our particular expertise, but widespread protests in the wake of the announcement show that many people do not feel justice has been served.
The Drug War killed Breonna Taylor. Former Detective Brett Hankinson, Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly, and Detective Myles Cosgrove may have pulled the trigger, but they carried out this raid because of our misguided, ineffective, and racist drug laws. Since President Nixon first declared a “War on Drugs” in 1971, Black Americans have been arrested, jailed, and killed for frequently minor or nonviolent drug offenses. No‐knock raids, in which police are authorized to enter a property without notifying the residents, have become a favorite tool of law enforcement, with tens of thousands executed each year.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/breonna-taylor-another-victim-war-drugs
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