The Breonna Taylor story is a bad one.

Police have every right to investigate drug offenses and they had a warrant for same. Unfortunately they broke in, a 'no knock' warrant allowed them to do that. Those inside could reasonably assume these were intruders, whether the officers identified themselves or not. Maybe in the initial confusion that identifier was not heard. It is also reasonable to assume that someone might defend themselves against a suspected intruder. Which means the officers would also have to defend themselves. That is what happened here and Breonna was killed in the exchange.

If the person for whom the warrant is issued is not guilty (in this case no drugs were found), then you have a bad situation. It is one thing for a person to defend themselves if they have done nothing wrong and another if they are guilty of what the warrant was issued for. With a 'no knock' warrant you have no room for error. The police, and/or the judge issuing the warrant, must have had a very good reason to allow for the 'no knock' warrant. Unfortunately, this situation did turn out very badly.

And, further, when things like this go wrong, the families of the diseased earn a windfall, in this case a $12m settlement with the City of Louisville. That just doesn't sit well with me. Seems like an incentive, almost a life or death lottery. But, that is another problem to address.

In this case, serving this warrant went very bad. But, an example of systemic racism in the police force, i don't see it.

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