When Breonna Taylor died in a hail of police bullets, she joined the pantheon of Black Lives Matter martyrs, men such as George Floyd, Michael Brown, Jacob Blake, and Trayvon Martin. Initially, she seemed anomalous because she was not engaged in criminal activity or resisting arrest when she died. New evidence, though, shows that, in addition to her relationship with a drug dealing ex-boyfriend (which is what caught the police’s attention), the boyfriend who shot the police was also a drug dealer. Taylor hung out with the wrong people.

BLM needed Taylor. While mobs were making shrines to George Floyd and congresspeople performed kneeling theater, other people observed that Floyd was a criminal who threatened a pregnant woman with a gun and had rotated in and out of prison. On the day of his death, he’d passed counterfeit money, guzzled illegal drugs, and resisted arrest. We also know now that the officers’ understanding of the situation and their decision to restrain Floyd was consistent with their training.

Jacob Blake was also a problem. Rather than being a loving father, he stood accused of sexual assault and violating a restraining order. Blake then wildly resisted arrest and attacked police with a knife. He may also have been planning either to stab the police or kidnap children.

Michael Brown, whose death triggered the Ferguson riots, wasn’t much better. The police were looking for the so-called “Gentle Giant” because he had committed a strong-arm robbery. When Officer Darren Wilson wanted to question him, Brown tried to steal Officer Wilson’s gun, justifying a self-defense shooting.

As for Trayvon Martin, while the initial narrative was that he was a sweet-faced choir boy brutally set upon and murdered by a white racist, the facts told a different story. Martin was a low-level thug and drug user. George Zimmerman, a Hispanic man, saw him skulking, called 911, and kept an eye on Martin to keep the 911 operator apprised of Martin’s activities. Martin attacked Zimmerman and was beating him to death when Zimmerman killed Martin.

When Breonna Taylor’s death came to light, it seemed like a dream come true for BLM’s martyrology. At last, a police shooting victim was a gainfully employed young woman whom the police wantonly slaughtered when they charged into her apartment during a no-knock raid.

Except that this narrative was also false and finally fell apart. While Taylor may not have had a record, her ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, was at the heart of a massive drug sting in Louisville. Taylor may have been holding drugs and weapons while managing his money. (Neither drugs nor money were found in her house.)

Taylor was in constant contact with Glover and helped provide bail money for his criminal associates. Because of her ongoing relationship with Glover, the police set up a raid on Taylor’s apartment.

It was also untrue that the police did a no-knock raid. Despite being authorized to execute a no-knock raid, the police repeatedly banged on the door, announcing themselves, and demanding admission. When the police entered the apartment, Taylor and her current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were standing at the end of the hallway. One of them immediately opened fire, hitting a police officer in his femoral artery. (Walker initially said Breonna fired that shot, although he later changed his story.)

Only then did the police open fire. And that’s how Breonna died, not in bed, as the initial reports held, but standing in the hallway with her boyfriend as one or the other of them deliberately shot at police who had loudly announced their presence.

And now there’s even more information challenging the tattered halo on Breonna’s head. Kenneth Walker was also dealing drugs:

In police interviews, Walker said that he was not involved in serious criminal activity, but did say that he sometimes personally used marijuana.

However, a search of his phone ‘found numerous conversations about drug trafficking,’ investigators said in the newly released documents. 

In several ‘chats’ described in the documents, Walker discusses selling ‘pills’ to Hooters waitresses.

In another conversation, he sent an image of a bag of marijuana, advertising it as ‘Cali High Grade Premium Cannabis 1LB,’ according to the documents.

In other messages, Walker offered to sell half ounces for $25, or two ‘zips’, slang for ounces, for $260, the documents state.

None of this information means that Taylor deserved to die. But it does mean that, once again, a BLM martyr was no angel. Instead, she was living a life that was predestined to intersect with the police, something that always carries the risk of ending badly, no matter what color you are.

Image: Breonna Taylor memorial in Louisville, Kentucky (cropped) by FloNight.  CC BY-SA 4.0.