Breonna Taylor case: Louisville police nearly blank incident report

There seems to be a pattern of similar reporting, and I wonder what are the reasons for that:

- "Police started killing black transgenders now" means "police shot a person who has just killed someone, was suicidal and was pointing a gun at the police"

- "A boy who played in the park was shot by police" means "a boy was pointing an illegally modified replica gun at people in the park".

- "Police randomly shot an unarmed black man who was reading a book" means "a guy who was high and armed tried to pull a gun on a black police officer". (This last bit of fake news caused riots that left 1 dead)

If you don't enrage the readers, then there's really nothing to discuss.

We all agree that people should have the constitutional rights. Most people killed by the police are white. Blacks and whites are killed in equal proportions relative to the number of arrests by race. We all agree that the police makes horrible mistakes sometimes and should be punished.

The media's goal is to make us disagree and hate each other.

The heading “what happened” purports to tell you the salient facts. The first paragraph proceeds in chronological order. Then it spends two paragraphs talking about stuff like how Taylor planned to be an EMT. And then it circles back to the shooting, and explains that the previously described “confrontation” was the boyfriend shooting at the police. Which totally changes your understanding of the narrative three paragraphs before. There is nothing clear about that.

context: I am a super liberal hippy. I'm really left, like, crazy.

I paused reading your comment at "instead you need to go down several" because I wanted to test my current knowledge of this incident: almost nothing, I know, hard to believe, given the claim at the start. (I've been under a lot of stress at work, it's OK, I'm fine, thanks for asking though :) )

So I read the article... Here is the first paragraph under "What happened in Louisville?"

"Shortly after midnight on March 13, Louisville police officers, executing a search warrant, used a battering ram to crash into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American emergency room technician. After a brief confrontation, they fired several shots, striking her at least eight times."

OK - so, I feel like I completely understand this is a complicated situation, not one where the cops kicked down the door and started shooting.

1. "After a brief confrontation"

This is an obvious "and cut-to," that is, I know lots of stuff happened here. I would expect a reader who isn't completely engulfed in polarizing furor to think about this for a second like I did.

2. Gunshots after a confrontation

I think this might be contentious, or where this is all loaded up... When I see "a confrontation" followed by "eight gunshots" - I actually do assume there was some reason that a reasonable gun toting police offer might have to fire after a confrontation. To me, this sets a pretty clear context.

Let me add some more that came in later paragraphs that helped crystalize my understanding and leaves me feeling like the article here isn't really as biased as you are reading it as, though, I am not accusing you of being biased, or misreading the article. I can't begin to know all the things that contribute to your thinking, and vice-versa!

3. no-knock warrant

While this all sounded like a completely legal entry, and a normal police procedure, here are my personal "let me add some context to how I interpret this" thoughts.

- If I were a POC (I'm not), multiple plain-clothed white men with guns just stormed into my apartment. This is immediately tense. Imagine how you would react. What's going through your mind as a civilian? Keep in mind, police should be trained to do a no-knock warrant. They should be experienced and cool as a cucumber. I want this in our operators who go into dangerous situations, in fact, I expect it. You can train for danger. There is no excuse for imprecision when you are dealing with life and death, especially if, when doing it, you aren't planning to deal with life or death.

4. Her home was searched not because of an actual crime she committed, but because it was a possible drop-off location for a package involved in a crime.

This feels really weak. Investigate the location then. Stake it out. Find your target and gather more evidence. This sounds rushed, and desperate. Storming an intermediate source of evidence rather than waiting for a better opportunity? Welp, it's not my job so I honestly don't know. I'm not in law enforcement so opinions are like assholes, right?

So in summary?

I think NYT speaks to a reader who is open-minded and understands that context is important, and that these subjects are complex. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit? If someone can walk away from the article with your point of view, I must be, time to think about that.

If anyone broke down my door, I would attack them. If I had a gun, I would shoot them, I wouldn't think twice. I sit here, and have no reason to believe someone should kick in my door unless they mean me harm. Let me grant other people the same right.

I expect police to be professional. The details on how this went down are not professional. It think that is safe to say simply because of the outcome.

The police were executing a warrant for a bad person who was not the person who died. How can we accept that they were in control of the situation, and if we cannot, or we think they couldn't have been, why would we send people into such a situation?

I am very flexible when it comes to granting authorities protections and flexibility in interpreting the law. I actually, for most of my life, have had faith in the system. I can imagine a scenario where I think many objective individuals would agree a no-knock warrant would make sense, so I can agree that they might be useful. I can also agree that ill-equipped people given tools they don't comprehend, or are not thoughtful enough, or well trained enough to use, will ultimately abuse and/or misuse them.

To be clear, do you think either of the victims in this incident did anything wrong?

I do agree that in many cases both sides did something wrong, but in this case I can't imagine how you can find fault there.