Washington Post, Sept. 23, 2020
Miss Breonna Taylor
By Robin Givhan
The Kentucky attorney general kept calling her Miss.
Miss Taylor. Miss Breonna Taylor.
He gave her that honorific, that scrap of dignity six months after she
was killed.
Wednesday afternoon, Daniel Cameron (R-Ky.) was standing before the news
cameras, and therefore the country, to explain the grand jury’s decision
in her death. Speaking precisely, calmly and with a measured cadence
from behind a lectern adorned with the golden mark of the Commonwealth,
the prosecutor wore a suit with a neatly folded white pocket square,
along with a dark face mask which he removed as he began to speak. This
Black man was accompanied by White colleagues who wore face masks, too.
It was a tableau of professional propriety, civic responsibility and
racial bliss.
Cameron used the genteel title — “Miss” — as a matter of formality but
also as a kind of armor. The nicety would serve as evidence of his
respectfulness of Taylor and of his regard for the criminal justice
system. The title would also give feeble cover to the system’s
indifference to the value of this 26-year-old Black woman’s life. The
word would teeter atop a mountain of historical disregard that continues
to grow.
Actions of officer who killed Taylor ruled ‘justified’
Cameron had been tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding
Taylor’s death after three police officers converged on her apartment
one early morning in March. Several witnesses say the officers did not
announce themselves, although during his remarks, Cameron said he had a
single civilian witness who heard them do so. Taylor’s boyfriend fired a
shot in self-defense. The officers released a barrage of bullets — one
of which proved fatal to Taylor.
Neither she, nor her boyfriend, were the object of the officers’
pursuit. She did not have a weapon. She had done nothing wrong. She was
simply at home. And she was killed by police.
Cameron called her death a tragedy. That’s the least of it.
He explained to the country that the three officers who were under
investigation would not be prosecuted for her death. One of them, former
Louisville detective Brett Hankison, who fired blindly and wildly
through her door, would face charges for the wanton endangerment of the
lives of three other people — people who lived in a neighboring
apartment. No one would be held to account for Taylor’s death. Taylor
was killed and the system shrugged.
But at least Cameron called her Miss.
There was little distinctive about Cameron’s news conference, but an
awful lot that was familiar, most notably the realization that a family,
a community and a country have once again been asked to sit with the
horror of what happened. Bureaucrats love to describe how many
collective years of experience were at their disposal to wrestle with
some devastating event. In this case, Cameron said among the prosecutors
and investigators on his team there were more than 200, which perhaps
should suggest that all those years of expertise working in a flawed
criminal justice system simply reflect a dispiriting momentum rather
than something about which to brag. For communities who have not been
treated equally under the law, it’s not a reason to trust his judgment,
but to be leery of it.
Nonetheless, Cameron showered his colleagues with public praise — not
for going above and beyond like Hollywood’s versions of righteous
prosecutors, but for essentially doing their jobs. “The team is here
with me today. I want to personally and publicly thank them for their
tireless work,” he said. “These men and women are true public servants
who for months have shown up every day with a desire for one thing, and
that is to seek the truth.”
What truth did they uncover in all their searching? What did they
heroically reveal? The criminal justice system decided that the police
officers were “justified” in their use of force, “justified” in the
return of deadly fire, “justified” in protecting themselves. Taylor’s
killing was “justified.”
But of course, none of that is true. Those determinations are not
gospel. They are twisted beliefs, biased understandings, preexisting
cultural conditions, falsehoods. And they have long been clear and visible.
Cameron spoke at length about the case, his voice always mellifluous. He
rarely stumbled for words. He might not have been practiced but he was
unruffled. At times his words even carried a sense of resigned
melancholy. “Criminal law is not meant to respond to every sorrow and
grief,” he said.
But surely the law is meant to be just.
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