Justice?

Focus on the outcome. Was justice served? Is justice present? Did ‘right’ seem to win the day?

Take the Breonna Taylor case. She is dead. She was a public servant in her role as an EMT. She was innocent of charges relevant to the police warrant. She was unaware of any of this.

Yet she is dead.

In the dead of night her home was broken into by police. Perhaps they thought they were acting within the law, but the result of their actions produced a dead, innocent person. The home was damaged. The peace was broken. The police claim they announced their presence. What does that matter when the parties inside the targeted home could not hear, were unable to make out the message in the chaos that ensued. And the noise? The dread of wondering what is happening. In a dead sleep to wakening? Coming up through the fog of sleepiness?

What was the original objective of the police? To catch drug dealers, find a cache of drugs? Catch a thief? Were Breonna and her boyfriend any of those? No.

But Breonna is dead. For what reason?

The process used by the police did not produce the desired result. The court system did not find wrong in the result or the process which produced the result.

Justice was therefore not served.

Would care by the police have been greater if the subjects of the police action were white?

Therein lies a question relevant to racism, privilege and justice.

Still the word – justice.

Something is very wrong with the Breonna Taylor case. And yes, it is emblematic of what Black citizens are telling America: Black Lives Matter. No proof is needed of that claim. It is all too apparent.

September 28, 2020