It seems highly unlikely that anything good could come of the impending grand jury decision surrounding the circumstances of Breonna Taylor’s death, which has prompted the Louisville Metro Police Department to declare a preemptive state of emergency.
The police department made the announcement on Monday, at which time the department also canceled all outstanding requests for time off, according to Wave 3 News. Sources told the outlet that members of the LMPD’s Special Response Team as well as other officers in the department have received orders to start preparing for the public’s response to the decision.
In the months since police fatally shot the 26-year-old in her apartment, calls for justice have centered on arresting the officers who discharged the eight bullets that killed her. But the law as it is doesn’t allow for such a straightforward response (even if there were the will to execute it). As many legal experts have explained by now, Kentucky law has a statute on the books allowing police officers to use deadly force in self-defense, and since Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker shot his gun first—believing that an intruder, not a police officer, was trying to enter the apartment—it becomes a much more difficult case to make.
Taylor now has a law named after her, banning no-knock warrants like the one that ended in her death in Louisville, Kentucky, and her family will receive $12 million in compensation from the city. But the mass protests and viral campaigns are very clear: Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor.
Anything short of that could once again mean hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets.