Police Accountability Doesn’t Exist

Breonna Taylor’s Death as Seen From a Kentuckian

A girl was shot to death, in bed, by police, not far from my house.

I’m less than an hour’s drive from Louisville, and yesterday forever changed the Kentucky socio-political landscape yet again.

Let me clue you in on something I’ve heard TWO police officers locally inform me of. They have both, unknowingly, confirmed one another’s account of how they’re taught to use their weapon. Their stories corroborated the “spray and pray” mentality.

This is a simple way of saying fire a lot of ammo and hope it meets its target. They’re not taught to be precise. This is not me saying it out of opinion. A city police offer and a state trooper have told me this in confidentiality, but almost jokingly. They laugh uneasily when saying it because it reminds them of two things.

One: that their life is on the line daily and especially now. I get that.

Two: discharging a firearm and hoping for the best possible outcome is utter foolishness.

Kentucky and Guns

Many of you will probably stop reading this article when I say this, and that’s okay. I’m a gun owner. Growing up in the South (though people debate me about Kentucky being Southern,) hunting was something commonplace. We deer, rabbit, and squirrel hunt. It was a means of putting food on the table. We didn’t kill for sport; we didn’t look for trophies. It was about existing.

The first thing you come to terms with is how it feels to take another living creature’s life. Some become very cold to it, but if you have a heart, every kill is emotional inside you. Something gave its life that I could continue to sustain my life.

That’s something we forget as we grab our cold cuts from the fridge or have a nice steak at a restaurant, alas, that’s a different article.

My point is that as a hunter, your goal is to end the animal as quickly as possible, so there’s no suffering. We learn to be very precise. Spray and pray is not something any responsible gun owner knows. It’s the opposite of what anyone using a firearm should even consider an option.

The Night It Happened

As the officers entered Breonna’s apartment with a no-knock warrant employing a battering ram, the man inside began firing his weapon. It’s what a lot of people in Kentucky would do if someone was knocking your door down.

I confess I don’t know the whole story. I have questions too. Like, how did they not hear “Police!” or whatever they say? Did they even say that or just bust in?

You may be thinking, why did this dude have a gun, and why was he afraid of home invasions?

If you ever visit certain areas of Louisville, Kentucky, you’ll understand why he felt this way.

Breonna was an ER tech at the time. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to confront her or apprehend her on the job or after work?

I don’t understand police stuff so excuse me for my ignorance. The whole ordeal is so confusing.

My Fellow Kentuckian

Regardless of how it all actually transpired, Breonna, my fellow Kentuckian, was shot and killed by police. At least 10 rounds were discharged in her apartment, some even going into the next apartment through the walls! Does this sound like precise shooting? Absolutely not.

It was spray and pray tactics.

Close your eyes, pull the trigger, and hope you walk out alive; that’s the approach.

To be fair, I don’t care if you support or want to defund the police. That’s not the issue. The problem has always been accountability, and it is glaringly apparent.

Wednesday’s Findings

Our Attorney General announced that none of the officers would be directly charged with the death of Breonna Taylor.

It was stated that the police were acting in self-defense because the resident was firing at them.

I understand that, had the resident been shot to death, how the court could have ruled in that manner.

But that’s not who they killed. Lousiville Police Department killed a young black woman that was responsible for helping people.

Let’s remove the controversy from her name. Some will say she was a drug dealer.

How do they know that? Did they buy drugs off her?

Or are they going by what a corrupt police department reports?

Who do we believe in situations like this?

I can’t see her background or a police report if she even had one. I don’t know and will not make assumptions. All I know is Breonna wasn’t discharging a firearm in her house, yet she was the one who died. No officer is being charged with her death. Who’s responsible for her death, then?

Is the ammunition company at fault? Maybe Glock? Or was it was her own fault for living with this guy?

Absolutely not. The police department killed her.

What Happened

Was it accidental? Most likely. So? Does that change the fact that she’s no longer alive because of an irresponsible department that teaches officers, hyped up on adrenaline, to spray and pray?

The problem isn’t black people. The problem isn’t a gun. The problem isn’t even drugs (if those were actually involved.)

The problem is that there will never be full accountability for police actions.

Police are continually trained in outdated methods of confrontation. It sounds foolish to say, but we need to return to the Wild West of America. Those cowboys were accurate. Their hip shots were second to none, and they were fast draws.

If someone is firing at you, you need to be precise if you’re going to use a firearm. And the reality is, our police just aren’t.

They’re not accurate, they’re not responsible, nor are they thinking straight.

I’m afraid there is no resolution but I hope I’m wrong.

Breonna’s case goes deeper than race, in my opinion.

It shows the underbelly of a corrupt good-old-boys club of people who have no accountability, ultimately, and they know it. These problems reveal how unprepared these men and women are at their jobs overall.

The question is, how do we fix this? How do we prevent more deaths?