“Courts, with all these laws, never, ever seem to make sure that these killer cops are held accountable,” Ben Crump, the lawyer for Breonna Taylor’s family told MarketWatch weeks ago.
A Kentucky grand jury on Wednesday indicted one of three Louisville officers involved in the botched “no-knock” drug raid that ended with Breonna Taylor’s shooting death, yet critics say justice has not been served.
The indicted ex-officer, Brett Hankison, was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment. Taylor’s family reached a $12 million settlement with the city of Louisville earlier this month; the pact includes reforms in how the city’s police use warrants. The warrant in Taylor’s case reportedly targeted someone who didn’t live there, and the raid turned up no drugs.
Crump spent time with MarketWatch to discuss the court system’s role in the Black-white wealth gap, the difference between perceptions of crack cocaine and opioids, and the corporate response to Floyd’s death. The conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, is the third installment of the MarketWatch inequality-themed interview series The Value Gap.
Or when you look at the opioid epidemic in America now, how the pharmaceutical companies are being held accountable to the full extent of the law. But when you have stuff like the crack cocaine epidemic, we didn’t talk about giving mental and medical help to deal with the addictions. They just criminalized an entire community of people in America.Crump: In a pronounced way.
Because now you already have a tight budget, and now that budget has been completely blown out of proportion because you have this unexpected legal matter that because your child was a person of color, a citizen of color, they were given the most extreme measures handed down by the court. MarketWatch: But what’s the solution if someone is brought in on serious felony charges and is a flight risk? Isn’t there a public-safety issue that should be taken into account?
Crump: The solution is to change the racist criminal-justice system that tries to make sure that they have Black and brown bodies populating the prison industrial complex. That’s the overarching message. ... Once you’re a convicted felon that spent time in prison, I mean, it’s almost anything you can try to do to be gainfully employed. They take it away from you.
MarketWatch: What’s the solution — to seal records? To erase them through expungement? Don’t employers have a right to know who they are hiring and what the backstory is? MarketWatch: So you’re saying prosecutors need the will to bring cases against police officers who are potentially involved in wrongdoing. But there’s also case law they have to consider, not to mention judges and juries. What role do the courts have in perpetuating police brutality?
Then you get-out-of-jail-free card. And when you get that get-out-of-jail-free card, then it tells the police that we can kill certain people and we won’t be held accountable. Crump: Absolutely, and when you read my book [“Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People”], that’s what I talk about. If we apply the Constitution, if we live by those high ideals, then this is the greatest country in the world. But we have to speak truth to power when we get a chance.
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