Jenee, FFS, this isn't semantics. The circumstances matter. Murder is a very well-defined legal concept and the DA cannot rightly charge someone with it unless the requirements are met. It's called malicious prosecution if a DA does.
If you want to use "murder" as a term to mean any killing, that is your perogative. But murder is a legal term. There are lots of things that are intentional killing of a human being that are not legally murder. Killing an enemy combatant during a time of war is generally not murder. Killing in the heat of passion is often considered involuntary manslaughter, and not murder. People have already talked about self-defense killings as not murder. Even cases where someone makes a reasonable mistake that leads to a killing, it's not murder. Euthanasia is not murder. Taking someone off of life support is not murder. Hell, even Donner Party style cannibalism is arguably not murder. Paladin's link is behind a paywall. But you can take your pick of actual news stories from Google, or look at the link to the NY Times story I had in an earlier post. According to her boyfriend, they had been watching Netflix when they were startled by knocking. The boyfriend said Breonna asked who was there several times. She was near/next to Williams when she was killed. https://www.courier-journal.com/sto...-taylor-fact-check-7-rumors-wrong/5326938002/
@Jenee Consider that you have strong feelings about charging someone with murder despite your having at least two fundamental misunderstandings (knocking, Breonna's situation) of what happened.
Small point of order: it is pretty much impossible to hold a prosecutor liable for malicious prosecution. They generally have immunity for their decisionmaking as prosecutors. A prosecutor hypothetically could say "I don't believe I can make charges stick here and get a conviction, but screw it, I will charge this person and let the jury decide if he should be convicted." It's my belief that such an action would be improper and unethical, and at least one national body of prosecutors would concur.
Consider that the current POTUS was willing to see five young men executed despite his fundamental misunderstanding of what happened.
What you have quoted looks like murder to me. An unknown person breaks into my apartment - after repeated questions of "who is it?" and "who is there?", then, according to YOUR OWN definition, Walker and Taylor were innocent and the police officers murdered them.
I would not pat myself on the back for having the same level of (mis)understanding as POTUS about, well, anything but POTUS.
Assuming the facts are as you summarized them (and keep in mind that they might not be -- Breonna's boyfriend could be lying about the two of them repeatedly asking who was there, or he could be lying about whether he could tell it was the cops by the time he shot), the innocence of Walker and Taylor does not factor into the equation of whether the officers who fired would be guilty of murder from a legal standpoint. The question is if they were justified in thinking their lives were in danger, regardless of why. It is hard to argue that your life is not in danger when you have been shot at and in fact one of your colleagues have been hit.
Was Breonna holding a gun? The question then comes down to the officer's word against Walker's. And, why would the officer's word be more credible than Walker's?
You thought there was no knock. There was. You thought Taylor was in bed when she was shot. She wasn't. You thought Walker was killed. He wasn't. I could add a fourth: you don't understand the legal concept of murder.
Was Taylor engaged in illegal activities? No Was Taylor engaged in activities that a reasonable person could construe as "life threatening?" No. Did the officer shoot and kill her anyway? Yes. Explain to me what other concept constitutes murder?
Murder has to include either malice or depraved disregard for human life. No malice is in evidence, and, given that the officers returned fire when fired upon, depraved disregard for life was also not evident. Without those, there is no murder. Although the grand jury found evidence to support a charge of wanton endangerment against one officer, that was for shots that apparently did not hit Taylor.
Murder is, to be simplistic, an intentional killing of a human being without legal justification. None of the things that you listed negate the legal justificaiton the officers had (at least to some degree) -- that they had been shot at. It does not matter from a legal point of view, assuming for discussion's sake, that Walker shot at the officers believing that he was the victim of a home invasion. It does not matter from a legal point of view that Taylor was innocent as the driven snow, or frankly, if she were the second coming of Scarface. Taylor was, from all evidence available, near a person who fired a shot at police. The fact that he fired a shot at them justified under the law them firing back. The fact that they were trying to defend themselves in the wake of the shot fired by Walker means that they are (at least arguably) justified in firing at least some of those shots, regardless of the consequences. Now, as far as I know, nothing has been disclosed as to the ballistics so it is unclear how wildly off the one officer who has been charged shot. I would have to take it that at least some of his shooting was nowhere near where Walker's shot originated from, or that his vantage point was such that he could not reasonably be deemed to have fired.
In my mind, he panicked and initiated Death Blossom! Seriously, I believe it's known which shots fired by which officers hit Taylor. I thought I saw it reported in the media which officer is believed to have fired the fatal shot.
Almost nothing here comes down to the words of the officers versus Walker's. One can discount everything the officers have said pretty much and take Walker's account as gospel. It still doesn't change the case to fit the legal definition of murder.
Are you fucking kidding me? So being unarmed, innocent, and not engaged in violence but being near a gunfight is justification for being killed? You just made the greatest possible argument for the complete negation of any consideration by the populace to the special powers that police have. They should be stripped of these powers, and a new generation brought into place that don't justify the killings of innocents in such a completely inhumane fashion.
@Paladin is on record as arguing that the Bill of Rights protects fetuses (perhaps even embryos and fertilized eggs), but I wonder how he'd respond if instead of an adult woman the LEOs had killed a child? At a guess he'd dismiss it as "an unfortunate accident" and shift the blame to Walker for "firing shots when there was a child in the house." IMO, "murder" is not the term for what happened. "Depraved indifference" would fit, though.
Zero witnesses have said "the Police did not knock and did not announce". 11 witness said "I didn't HEAR the police knock and announce". That gives us zero information about whether the police knocked or announced.
Did the 11 testify that no knock took place? Or did they testify that they heard no knock? Walker's own statements indicate someone was banging on the door.
No, you are misunderstanding "justification." The officers are not justified BECAUSE Taylor was unarmed, innocent and not engaged in violence. They were justified DESPITE Taylor being unarmed, innocent and not engaged in violence. Although these happen to be police officers, this is not a legal concept that is unique to them. Let's say a civilian happened to be legally carrying a gun someplace where the civilian has every legal right to be and someone shoots at him. The civilian has every right to shoot back. Hopefullly we all understand and agree on that point. Now let's say the civilian happens to miss the person who shot at him originally and hits instead a 4 year old baby and a nun, killing them both. The civilian is still legally innocent of murder because the threat by the original shooter justified self-defense, even though the consequences of the civilian's shot are horrific.
And eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable which is why things like body cams are so important.
My personal opinion is that police officers who execute search warrants without at least one officer equipped with a body cam are beyond foolish. They unnecessarily raise all sorts of questions for both any potential criminal case and open themselves to all sorts of civil claims that would be foreclosed or narrowed if they had body cam to prove it. In 2020, police departments have to come to terms that no one will trust them on their say-so.
The one witness that said he heard the police knock and announce was on his way home from a late shift. He was in the hallway when he heard the police yell once “POLICE!” I assume that given the time of night and the other witnesses were in their apartments behind doors. It’s totally possible that all parties here are telling the truth.
I'm quite sympathetic to Mr. Walker, and can quite easily see myself or other innocent people falling into the same circumstance. I'd rather police do away with no-knock raids for all but the most dangerous scenarios (e.g., known armed and violent felons on premises). There's a range of reactions between "Oh, well, shit happens" and "Murder!" The city has revised some of their policies, negotiated a settlement with the victim's family, and terminated one officer. That officer is also going to be tried on a fairly serious charge. According to the Times article, the officer charged fired through sliding glass doors that had blinds, in violation of department policy requiring a line of sight to the target. This might have indeed risen to the level of depraved indifference... ...but none of his shots hit Taylor.
