Social Justice Reform in Sports

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I watch sports as entertainment not to get lectured. I no longer watch NFL or NBA and you can throw the news in there as well. I live in Massachusetts where everyone all the time is pushing their agendas onto you, I just want to have a convo about anything that no politics are involved in. It used to be rude to bring it up now it emboldens ppl.

"He shot at a cop" is a reductionist argument that ignores context.

Her boyfriend wasn't a criminal, wasn't involved in the warrant, and was a legal gun owner. He lived in a red, stand your ground state. The police claim they announced their presence, but the boyfriend claims they didn't despite loudly yelling at the intruders to identify themselves. The police had a no knock warrant approved so they had no incentive to properly announce themselves. I don't completely rule out that the police announced themselves, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they are lying about it after the fact. The only reason police issue warrants at 1am is to catch them off guard while sleeping, the very timing of the warrant increases the likelihood of this scenario happening, and loudly announcing their presence defeats their objective. Ultimately, it's very hard to come up with a reasonable motive for why he would've deliberately fired exactly one shot if he really knew it was the police.

Now, the legal argument is tougher obviously, because the laws make it very difficult to charge (and especially convict) police for any wrongdoing. If police served the warrant in a more professional and transparent manner, I highly doubt the officer would've been shot and Breonna Taylor wouldn't have been killed. The city agreed to pay $12m for the police's role, and they couldn't bring the boyfriend to trial despite shooting a cop. These aren't the actions a city would take if this was a normal incident. The boyfriend claims they tried to leverage his arrest to implicate Taylor in the drug scheme, which would not be a unique tactic. So, by law, maybe they shouldn't be held responsible for their death in a court room, because the law is written to uniquely protect police. The problem is, in reality, their actions directly led to her killing, and this is yet another example of a dangerous police procedure that unnecessarily puts lives at risk. The legal protections police have may be necessary, but with these protections police should be held to the highest standard and they've fallen so short here.

Police generally fight against bans of no knock warrants or mandatory body cameras, and it takes tragedy for a state like Kentucky to issue these reforms. The officer who was shot got video access to another body camera from a responding officer, and his lawyer is using it to garner public sympathy. We know at least one officer who served the warrant was wearing a body camera based on the police's own photos, and we know the chief lied about this fact. We have no video from the warrant/shooting. The chief was later fired in June, after two cops involved in a separate shooting also didn't have their body cameras on as required (seems, dare I say, a systemic issue with that department). It's almost like the police use these tools to their own advantage, but systemically keep them off when they know high risk police activity is about to go down to protect themselves in case they violate protocol. In a he said, she said dispute they will always win.

The law may have been applied properly, but that doesn't mean the laws are just either. Legally, even if it was proven the cops came in with no announcement and killed both occupants only to find no drugs, money, or other evidence, they could've still not been charged, and that's the problem. The police did a poor job in so many aspects: the supporting evidence for the no knock warrant seems questionable at best, the surveillance before serving the warrant was lacking, they most likely didn't adequately identify themselves, they didn't use body cameras to document the incident, and one cop fired indiscriminately after the initial shot. Then, they took months to release the nearly blank police report that listed "no forced entry", no bias, and no injuries for Taylor despite the fact Taylor was already dead. It's one thing to argue the law was properly applied, but to act like the cops incompetence wasn't staggering in this case makes me uncomfortable. This form of policing is a huge risk to society with minimal benefits. I don't want to get rid of police, but I want them to be better than these cops.

I've seen a panel of five prominent black lawyers, prosecutors etc who looked at the case and they all agreed the evidence for the warrant was massive. Zero issues with that.

Context Taylor's ex BF was a big time drug dealer who's now in jail. They have multiple recordings of him saying go see Taylor she has my money to get me out of here. It's why they launched an investigation into her and got a warrant.

Makes sense why her new BF would open up fire through the door without knowing who it was no? He thought it was her ex BFs buddies coming for the money.

I don't think stand your ground laws apply to firing through a closed door when you don't know who's on the other side. They bust through the door sure, yet at that point it would be clear they are Police.

One neighbor has said they heard Police announce themselves and it makes perfect sense if they were banging on the door. Who knows if they heard them inside. I believe the BFs story, I don't think he knew it was Police. He was just scared it was Taylor's EXs guys. Yet that's part of the problem for me, because that's not normal. Part of this is life choices she made. Choices the BF made to fire a weapon having zero clue who he was shooting at, that's the biggest no no of gun ownership. It's why one officer was fired and charged because he just randomly fired his weapon with Bullets entering other apartments.

The Police certainly handled this poorly and yes we need Police reform. I'd argue if they just did the no knock warrant no one gets shot or killed because they would have been inside before the BF even knew what was happening. That's the point of no knock warrants to avoid this type of event. I 100% agree with RJP every cop should have a body camera and they need to always by on, along with more and better training. The fact they had watched her on and off for a long time yet thought she was alone.

Yet I truly believe this happened because of life choices Taylor made. It's a truly tragic event she died, yet there is much more to this story than what most news stations are truly reporting. She died because she was in such fear that she worked her BF up to the point that he just fired without knowing who it was. He's lucky to not be charged because of current events and the Police messing up.

If she didn't have his money why else was she is so much fear that her EXs guys would come after her?

I'm all for reform, because our Police do kill too many people of all colors. Yet we need to look at facts also. Which I don't think you are if you think the cops need to be charged with murder. That's going to greatly influence ratings of sports.

It's getting to the point that no matter what a person does, it's still just cops killing black people. That's wrong. The crazy guy jumping around with a knife who charged at a police officer like a week ago. They destroyed the city, with the family saying why did you have to kill him. This has to be a two way street for real change, it's not just 100% on one side.

The bolded part is speculation on your part though. You describe knocking as a fact, as if police definitely knocked on the door hoping the occupants would answer. You also suggest the knocking could've been so loud and consistent that the occupants couldn't hear three policeman shouting "police, search warrant" over and over, and the same police couldn't hear two occupants yelling for the "intruders" to identify themselves. I don't know about you, but unless you have a sound proof door that's pretty hard to do by just pounding a door repeatedly with your hands. It sounds more likely in this scenario that the "knocking" was not a knock at that point, but the noise of the battering ram or other tool hitting the door repeatedly until it gained entry. So why knock but not identify yourself? Well, what if they only knocked for 10 seconds or not at all and just went straight to the battering ram? How can we say this "fact" of continued knocking wasn't just the sound of them ramming the door to gain entry?

At the risk of repeating myself, the police claimed there was no forced entry in their report, which was obviously not true. The police obtained a no knock warrant. After the incident, the police claimed even though they had a no knock warrant they were told to knock because Taylor wasn't seen as a risk for confrontation. It doesn't speak well of their warrant procedures if internally they don't feel the evidence should lead to a no knock warrant but were able to obtain one anyway, right? They lied about having no body cameras, and we found out later they just supposedly didn't turn it on. Yes, some parts of this case require speculation and reasonable minds can differ, but if anyone can't understand why some people don't trust this particular police department I don't know what to tell you. They haven't been completely truthful, to say the least, and the lack of public trust is undoubtedly their fault. There are many things we don't know about that night, but based on all the facts we do know I believe Kenneth Walker's account more than the police, while thinking the most likely account is somewhere in the middle but still closer to Walker's account.

I think I need to make this point too: if police didn't announce themselves, or did but only briefly, it doesn't mean they had sinister intent to deceive. I don't believe the cops intentionally tried to conceal their identity, I think they probably just didn't announce themselves as well as their training told them to (repeatedly, loudly, even after gaining entrance and moving throughout the home). These officers made many mistakes that night, and I'm sure their adrenaline was high before breaking down the door, so once it became time to break down the door (perhaps prematurely) their goals of identifying themselves temporarily switched to knock down the door mode. It would not shock me if these same officers initially did identify themselves before quick knocking and an even quicker transition to the battering ram, but they should've been repeatedly shouting it even after gaining entrance and continued as they move throughout the home. Cops can make mistakes while having good intentions.

What's amazing to me though is this police department and local government is literally in the process of changing their procedures and some of their officers to prevent this situation in the future, but nearly half of America wants to act like this stuff just happens and can't be fixed (I'm not putting you in that bucket, rjp313jr).

I don’t understand the point of this. There was no good reason for the cops to be going into her apartment that night. They went in because there MIGHT be drugs in her apartment. Who gives a crap? Oh my god drugs. You know what they could have done? Walked up to the door in the middle of the day and showed her a warrant to search her apartment. Or better yet, NOT searched her apartment because you had no real evidence she had any drugs. And guess what... she didn’t!

How didn't he know they were police then? Criminals wear police uniforms, badges, bullet proof vest that say Police? What he opened up fire without looking?

They were plain clothed officers - they were not wearing uniforms. Also; it was midnight and they were in bed, so I’m sure the lights weren’t on and badges around the neck aren’t easy to identify.

I argue against the boyfriend had a gun part because he was a legal gun owner with no criminal record. It doesn’t take much investigating to know who’s in that apartment and that they aren’t known criminals. If you can’t at least do that much then you shouldn’t be serving a warrant.

Those cops you see in the video are the ones that show up after the shooting. Watch the video again the guy they are picking up is the cop who was shot. He’s in a black shirt and dark pants that look like black jeans. The tactical gear are not the 3 cops who were serving the warrant. Hard to see in screen shot below but the guy on right is Mattingly on the ground. He’s not in tactical police gear.

He's wearing what they all are, they just took his gear off after he was shot. Those aren't cops that showed up, that's the team there to serve the warrant. Cops that would show up would be regular uniform Police.

What happened to Ms Taylor?

Shortly after midnight on Friday 13 March, she was in bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, when they heard a banging on the door.

Plainclothes Louisville police officers were carrying out a narcotics raid, and they used a battering ram to enter the property.


www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-54273317