Response to the Breonna Taylor Grand Jury Decision

Written by: Zamaris Morgan, ¡HICA!’s Family and Victim Advocate

On September 23rd, 1955, a jury acquitted the murderers of Emmett Till after only 67 minutes of deliberation. It is truly astonishing that sixty-five years later, we are still experiencing the same injustice and even more appalling that the miscarriage of justice is spearheaded by a system that was built to protect us.

The grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case is the most current evidence of the flawed criminal justice system and its mission to oppress our African American brothers and sisters. Unnecessary death must stop. Police must be held accountable for their actions just as we are held accountable or even more because of their position in our communities.

Breonna Taylor is no longer here because an officer decided to blindly use deadly force as his first line of defense. The most heartbreaking part of this case is that the disregard for her life did not end there; but a grand jury was able to arrive at the decision that her death warranted no significance.

In fact, their action of acquitting two of the officers and indicting one with the charge of wanton endangerment, deemed the bullets that missed her body more important than the bullets that ended her life.

My heart aches and goes out to her mother and family. I could not imagine losing my child and have the world tell me that her life did not matter.

This is the United States of America and equal justice should be afforded to us all, regardless of race, religion, or social status. We must all stand united in the effort that a miscarriage of justice against one is a miscarriage of justice against all.

We must all take a stand to effect true change.