This begs the question: Is there a fault in the grand jury system?Īccording to the Offices of the United States Attorneys, the grand jury process is as follows: “For potential felony charges,” the prosecutor presents the case to a group of impartial individuals that comprise the grand jury - about 16 to 23 people. Of the more than 30,000 they didn’t prosecute, 11 cases were because a grand jury did not return an indictment,” according to The Washington Post. prosecutors pursued 193,000 cases and prosecuted 162,350. For example, from October 2009 through September 2010 “U.S. Overall, however, indictments are easy to come. About 1,000 people are killed by police each year in the U.S., but since 2005, only 121 officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter - 44 of those were convicted out of the 95 concluded cases. It is extremely rare for a police officer to be charged with an on-duty manslaughter or murder and even fewer are convicted. Timothy Loehmann, who shot and killed 12 year-old Tamir Rice in 2015, was not indicted. More specifically, there seems to be a trend in which cases involving police and Black men and women fail to receive an indictment.ĭaniel Pantaleo, who put 43 year-old Garner in a choke hold - and subsequently died - in 2014, was not indicted.ĭarren Wilson, who shot and killed 18 year-old Micheal Brown in 2014, was not indicted. Taylor’s case has not only brought attention to the disproportion of coverage regarding police brutality towards Black women, but also highlighted possible injustices in grand jury hearings in cases involving police.įor instance, this is not the first time a case involving law enforcement has not been subject to an indictment. Although NPR reports that “men make up the vast majority of people shot and killed by police,” there is a lack of coverage given to crimes against Black women by police names such as Michelle Cusseaux and Kayla Moore are less familiar than those of George Floyd or Eric Garner. Many took to the streets protesting for all officers involved to be arrested while chanting “say her name.” The Say Her Name campaign, created in 2014, aims to bring more national attention to cases like Taylor’s. We've been saying "Say Her Name" for six months… and #BreonnaTaylor's name was NEVER mentioned in yesterday's indictment… Grace Jaye (’24) said, “I think it was such a shame because the police officer who killed her should go to jail.” 23, only one of the three officers involved was indicted - Brett Hankison -, yet not for Taylor’s death, but on three accounts of wanton endangerment of a neighboring apartment where bullets reached. She died.Īnd after a Kentucky grand jury hearing on Wednesday, Sep. Asleep in her bed on March 13, 2020, 26 year-old Emergency Medical Technician Breonna Taylor was shot eight times when police raided her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky.
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