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The Killing of Breonna Taylor

September 7, 2020 | revcom.us

From a reader:

A documentary directed by Yoruba Richen is now streaming on Hulu and FX as a New York Times presentation.

This story would not be told with such heart if it weren’t for the protesters who have been in the streets in Louisville day after day, braving cops’ tear gas, beatings, arrests, and National Guard shootings that killed a beloved barbeque cook, and on September 5, fascist militias who menaced peaceful protests surrounding the Kentucky Derby.

The Killing of Breonna Taylor captures the beauty and joy of Breonna as a person as she is described by her mother, boyfriend and “sisters.”  Two hours before she was murdered, she was on a FaceTime call with her cousin Pre (of “Pre and Bre”) showing off her outfits for Biloxi Black Beach Weekend.  Her death tore a gaping hole in a tightly woven community in Louisville.

But this story also wouldn’t be told with such depth without review of more than 1,500 pages of police records, evidence logs, transcripts of jailhouse recordings, 911 calls and surveillance photos, interviews with witnesses (neighbors and family), and public officials.  I knew the outlines of the police murder of Breonna, but seeing it all pulled together was a powerful light shone on the cruelty and the cover-up that police get away with time after time, starting with a police report that was so shockingly false that it stated that Breonna had no injuries!  It is a damning mountain of evidence and the pigs are STILL trying to get away with it by offering her former boyfriend a deal if he will say Breonna was part of his drug dealing. 

The chief pig’s first press conference is about how grateful they are that their cop shot in the leg lived; Breonna is not mentioned by name.  Despite waiting outside the apartment and the hospital for more than 12 hours, her mother doesn’t learn that it was police who shot her until she hears it later in the news.  Neighbors tell what it was like that night as you learn one cop (the only one even fired so far) shot into the house from outside, completely blindly at least 10 times.  Breonna’s toddler niece was not there as the bullets riddled the apartment.  She frequently stayed at Breonna’s several times a week.  Women who were sexually assaulted and harassed by a “creepy cop” realize it is this same cop and come forward to tell their stories.  There is so much more …

Months later, no cop is facing charges for Breonna’s murder.  According to the film it is because the authorities can’t determine who fired the fatal shots (three pigs opened fire)!  This was how the “justice system” let the Cleveland police walk after they opened fire 137 times on a homeless couple in a car because it could not be proved what were the fatal shots out of the hail of bullets.  They should all be charged for Breonna’s murder.   

The whole system is guilty as hell.