How the Police Killed Breonna Taylor [video] | Hacker News Reader

How the Police Killed Breonna Taylor [video]

nytimes.com

39 pointsadamsea15 comments

One thing is the low level of educational attainment required for cops in the US.

Some US police train only few weeks. Others just few months. In most European countries they train for years before they can go to the street. Selecting people who don't manage to get education to carry a gun makes different culture than requiring high school bachelors degree. Trained professionals vs. incompetent bunch of dropouts.

FBI seems to be more in line with what you would expect from a cop on a street in developed world

Not to mention that many of them (19%[0]) are ex-military with I'm sure some of them having either partially or fully formed PTSD (and whatever other mental issues combat/watching your squad getting blown up by an IED can bring).

[0]: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/30/when-veterans-...

Call a spade a spade: how the police murdered Breonna Taylor.

So frustrating that so many American's just accept that the police force here has become what the Judge Dredd comic satirized: judge, jury and executioners.

I've seen it start, cops chasing some dude, yelling at him to stop and he tripped. Cop literally landed on him and start beating him with the nightstick. I hollered "you caught him, stop already" and I still remember the savage look in the cop's eyes when he looked up. Thankfully some other cops showed up and carted the guy off. "In the heat of the moment" should not be a justification for LEO personnel.

Breonna Taylor was killed by mistake because her boyfriend started shooting in the darkness against the trigger-happy cops who had broken into the flat, probably unannounced.

The horribly botched affair is, more than an intended killing (which is the definition of murder) the product of a cultural stupidity that affected both the actions of the police and those of Breonna's boyfriend.

Her boyfriend started shooting at people who broke into their apartment late at night. This is literally the exact scenario pro-gun people argue you need a gun for.

> This is literally the exact scenario pro-gun people argue you need a gun for.

Yes, and they're wrong. That's exactly the stupidity I was talking about. This "shoot first, ask questions later", and more deeply, the fact that everyone acts as if they're in a stupid police tv series, is an attitude shared by both sides.

oh I agree with you entirely, but the fact that pro-2nd-amendment nutters (the idea that there isn't an established militia in the US is clearly absurd) are pro-police in cases like this is what makes me particularly mad, and why I brought it up.

Now that I think about it, "what you see in movies is a silly exaggeration" vs "that's a perfectly plausible depiction of reality" could be one of the deep cultural differences between Europe and the US. Maybe because the fact that most action movies are made in the US creates in Europeans a healthy sense of detachment. As if the foreign setting provided a way to firmly place the narration in the realm of fiction.

The police did have a no-knock warrant, but they did decide to announce themselves. It was her boyfriend that started shooting first then the law enforcement returned fire. Yes, let's call a spade a spade, her boyfriend was the cause of her death and even tried to blame her after the fact.

Cool, so to clarify, you're asleep in bed, you hear someone smash down your front door, and you exercise your 2nd amendment right to shoot at the home invaders who are not actively saying they're police the entire time. The only people who can back up the statement that they identified themselves are the police who mysteriously can't provide body cam footage, despite body cams being available.

Her boyfriend shot at armed intruders. Who then hung around while she died, without providing any aid.

The purpose of a no knock warrant is to provide cause to execute people.

[edit: hear vs. here]

He's in a state where that's the expected thing to do when someone breaks into your house.

If we're going to say shooting at intruders is wrong, we should just get rid of the castle doctrine

Being a cop is basically an unskilled position with a risk profile that is significantly under that of a pizza delivery person. Rotten departments should be fired outright and rehired from scratch. The only union in America that needs to stop existing is the police union.

Agree. Roofing is a more dangerous occupation. Cops are cry babies and overpaid high school bullies. We should require a college degree and more professional training. American cops are worse at their job than cops in almost any EU country.

tl;dr No one knew they were cops - no neighbors, no one. Then they did things wrong, panicked, and blasted the apartment to pieces.

Oh yeah, and then they just let her bleed to death.

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