Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery Are Gone… and Then the Details Came

After shootings of black Americans, chain-linked by the action qualifier walking, jogging, shopping, breathing while black, what follows is a wave of details born out of a deliberate partitioning of information. The powers in power find the specifics and the patience to search for the truth that should’ve been there from the jump.
Breonna Taylor’s 27th birthday is coming up on June 5. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, she was an emergency medical technician, who attended the University of Kentucky. She worked for two local hospitals, as a full-time ER tech at one of them.

“Working in health care is so rewarding. It makes me so happy when I know I’ve made a difference in someone’s life,” Taylor wrote on her Facebook page.

The FBI just announced that they have opened an investigation into the death of Taylor, who was shot at least eight times and killed by three police officers on March 13, when plainclothes officers reportedly forced their way into the house, looking for a suspect who not only lived on the other side of town but was already in police custody.

Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker were sleeping; he’s claimed the officers did not identify themselves. He fired one shot after the door was rammed open and hit an officer in the leg. The remaining officers then returned fire.

“All of a sudden there’s a whole lot of shots,” Walker said, in an interview conducted by a local Louisville TV station. “We both dropped to the ground and [my] gun fell. There’s the police and there’s a lot of yelling and stuff. They’re just shooting and we’re both on the ground, and when all the shots stop ... she’s bleeding.”
The FBI Louisville released a blanket statement, via social media because of the high media requests, stating that their office will collect all available facts and evidence in their investigation. Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad also announced his retirement over the incident. As for Walker, the attempted murder charges have been dropped, noting a need for more investigation.

According to reporting by CNN, going forward, "no-knock warrants," which allow Louisville police to enter a residence without announcing themselves or their purpose, must now be signed off on by a judge and the police chief or his designee before police can serve them. The department will now require all sworn officers to wear body cameras while serving warrants and in other situations in which they identify themselves as police officers.

In reference to another law that gun violence activists fight on the daily, the Ahmaud Arbery shooting has ignited the fight to repeal “stand your ground.” The original prosecutor on Arbery’s case cited Georgia’s “stand your ground” law as one of the reasons he refused to pursue charges against Gregory and Travis McMichael. Both men, along with a third, have been charged with Arbery’s murder, after video of the shooting was leaked.

Arbery, a frequent runner, was jogging through their neighborhood when the father and son confronted him, thinking he was a suspected robber. In recent weeks, white nationalist, far-right groups have actively promoted lies to paint Arbery as a criminal.

Three years ago, Carolyn Bryant admitted she falsely accused 14-year-old Emmitt Till a whistling at her in 1955; Till was tortured and killed over the lie. That moment was thrust back into the forefront when a NYC white woman named Amy Cooper called 911 on Christian Cooper (no relation), a bird watcher in Central Park, who claimed that the African-American man was threatening her life. He had asked her to follow the very specific rule of leashing her dog. She threatened, then called.

14News.com, BlackEnterprise.com, BET.com, CNN.com, Heavy.com, TheTrace.org, and USAToday.com contributed to this story.