Charges Include Federal Civil Rights Offenses, Unlawful Conspiracies, Obstruction Offenses, and Use of Excessive Force […]
A federal grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky, returned two indictments that were unsealed today, and the Department of Justice filed a third charging document today, in connection with an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old woman who was shot and killed in her Louisville home on March 13, 2020, by police officers executing a search warrant.
“The Justice Department has charged four current and former Louisville Metro Police Department officers with federal crimes related to Breonna Taylor’s death,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Among other things, the federal charges announced today allege that members of LMPD’s Place-Based Investigations Unit falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. Taylor’s home, that this act violated federal civil rights laws, and that those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death.
Falsified affidavits have long been the sine qua non for drug enforcement. It’s encouraging that this fraud is now gaining some attention.
The police raid occurred because the police believed that Breonna was harboring drug cash for her ex-boy friend, up to $14,000. No purported cash haul has shown up in any of the news coverage so far. Was any drug cash pocketed by the offending officers during the raid? We may never know.
Busts in Mexico can be much more cordial in these matters. In many cases a drug bust by corrupt Mexican cops might involve confiscating half your stash for their own personal use and then wishing you on your merry way. There’s much to be said for this approach.
By contrast, Russia will hand out a nine-year prison sentence for possession of a single cannabis vape. China still has a death penalty. If the quality of civilization were to be gauged by the severity of its drug laws and attitudes, then Russia is at rock bottom and so is China.