Update: On July 21, a federal judge handed down a sentence of 33 months for Brett Hankison, one of the cops involved in the cold-blooded murder of Breonna Taylor in 2020. Hankison had been convicted of violating Breonna’s civil rights by firing wildly into her apartment. The sentence is more than the Trump regime “Justice” Department’s recommendation that this pig be given ONE DAY of prison time—but is way below the official sentencing guideline of 11-14 years. And none of the cops involved had been convicted of the actual murder of Breonna Taylor. This is, as the article below notes, “a sick and twisted genocidal green light that there will not even be any pretense to convicting criminal murdering cops.”

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Adding cold-blooded insult to injury, the fascist Trump regime has gone out of their way to ask for a sentence of one of the pigs responsible for the murder of Breonna Taylor to be one day. One day! That's all a Black woman's life is worth in Trump's America. One day!! This is a sick and twisted genocidal green light that there will not even be any pretense to convicting criminal murdering cops.

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was murdered by the Louisville pigs in March 2020, while she was asleep in her bed. Three pigs busted down her door with a “no-knock” warrant. They had the wrong house, but it didn't matter. They opened fire with a hail of bullets, killing her in cold blood. Breonna’s boyfriend, also asleep in bed, had jumped up at the noise, thinking there were intruders. He cried out and got no response, so he fired his gun at the people charging into his home. The cops claimed they fired in "self-defense," and the state proclaimed "justified homicide." Another life stolen under the color of authority. 

None of the cops involved were charged with Breonna Taylor's actual murder. One of the cops, Brett Hankison, was found guilty in federal court—of ONE charge, using excessive force and "depriving Breonna Taylor of her civil rights." Hankison shot wildly through Breonna's glass window and patio door, having no idea who was on the other side. Five of his shots pierced the wall of an apartment next door and nearly struck a pregnant woman, her husband and child! The official sentencing guidelines for Hankison’s conviction are between 11–14 years.

Just think about this: under the normal workings of this system, most of these pigs got off. Just like most pigs get off most of the time for murder after murder. The police kill over 1,000 people every year, disproportionately Black and Brown. 

But even this small bit of justice for the people was way too much under Trump's openly white supremacist fascist regime. Trump wants it to be known that the brutal thugs in blue have a license to kill—openly and without remorse—and that they will face no consequences, even in the very rare circumstances when they are found guilty in a court of law.

On July 16, in an extraordinarily rare move, Harmeet Dhillon—Trump's newly appointed head of the "Civil Rights Division" of the "Justice” Department—submitted a sentencing memorandum to the judge. The memo “recommends” that Hankison should receive a sentence of one day for his crime—a day he had already served when he was briefly held earlier. This 18-page memo treats this trigger-happy pig as the "victim" that people should empathize with, when the reality is that he was part of a murderous gang that stole the life of an innocent person. 

The judge is set to rule on July 21.    

In the 2020 uprising against wanton murder by police, millions of people in the U.S. and around the world stood up to say: NO! Stop killing Black people! This system was rocked back on its heels in the face of this broad and beautiful civic uprising. Millions of people chanted Breonna Taylor's name, demanding justice!

With this sick request, the fascists are sending a message back: NO! It is once again, unapologetically open season on Black people. Your life snuffed out means nothing to this system. And just like the lynch mobs of old, the courts and justice system will back up the murdering mobs.

Now what do YOU say in response? Will you stand aside and let this whole genocidal system accelerate that genocide with a fascist in power? Will you let the fascists drag us back to Jim Crow segregation and terror driven by the spirit of the Confederacy? Or will you remember the righteous rage and responsibility that drove those millions into the streets in 2020? To STOP this injustice, to STOP this criminality. To make good on the potential power that we glimpsed in 2020, and channel this into the urgent fight now to stop Trump MAGA fascism, and to dig out the roots of the system that's given rise to this fascism and so many other atrocities.

To quote the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian in social media message Revolution #127, Trump/MAGA fascists demand a pardon for the racist cop who carried out the blatant and depraved murder of George Floyd!:

On the part of any decent person, there can be no “compromise,” no “living with”—and most definitely no active or passive collaborating with—these ghoulish racists and the whole Trump/MAGA fascist abomination!

This fascist regime Must Go—NOW!

And Black people have a crucial role in making this happen—acting in the best tradition of Black struggle—mobilizing, together with others, in massive opposition to the overt racism of the Trump fascist regime and all the ways it tramples on basic rights and treats whole groups of people as less than human.