A Kentucky grand jury convened to investigate the Breonna Taylor case indicted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankinson on three counts of wanton endangerment for firing into the apartment neighboring Taylor’s. No officers were charged in Taylor’s death.
When news of the verdict reached media outlets on Sept. 23, many students on Asbury’s campus, along with people throughout the nation, were outraged while other Americans were satisfied and faulted those who mourned the lack of adequate punishment for the officers involved.
We can argue back and forth about whether the police officers actually announced themselves or not — Attorney General Daniel Cameron said they did — or whether it was a shot fired by Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker that first hit officer Mattingly, as Cameron said. These are distractions from the real issue: an innocent woman was killed in her own home.
Worse than that, it does not seem that it matters much to many Americans. Many dismiss the incident saying that her boyfriend, for whom police were looking that night, was an accused drug dealer as if dating a drug dealer makes one’s life forfeitable as if being allegedly associated with drugs means that police have the right to kill you where you stand without trial.
The simple fact is that one’s past does not negate the sacredness of life. Jesus sat and ate with prostitutes and tax collectors. When the woman caught in adultery was brought before him, he did not degrade her and let her accusers kill her. He stood up and protected her life. He did not allow her to be murdered in the street.
Jesus did not condemn those who, by all human judgments, were wicked and deserve punishment. How much more, then, should we be valuing the lives of those in our community? I could list story after story of black men and women that have been treated with contempt and brutality when they should have been met with patience and understanding.
How can we claim that we are like Christ if we are not disturbed and outraged at the habitual murder of our black brothers and sisters in the streets? How can we say that we value life as sacred when we stand by while black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people. Have we been so desensitized to the murder of our black brothers and sisters on the news every day that we can simply say, “Oh that’s unfortunate” and move on?
I have heard Christians time and time again use a person’s past to justify the horrors they suffered at the hands of police. When George Floyd was found to have had a past of drug abuse, many Christians acted as if this justified him being killed in the street for a counterfeit bill. Why is it that a person’s past makes their life less sacred to us? Jesus still treated the woman at the well as sacred, even when he fully knew her past. Why do we feel, then, that we have the right to choose who is worthy of fairness and justice?
If we as Christians claim that all life was sacred, then Breonna Taylor’s life was sacred. Her life mattered.
