So the news broke today that Kenny Stills, wide receiver for my team, the Houston Texans, was arrested yesterday and charged with a felony, along with 86 other people who joined him in a protest. At first I thought "Great, that's clearly what we need right now." But then I started thinking about it, and the more I thought about it the more angry I got. Here's why......
Let's look at what we know so far:
Kenny Stills joined a protest march in Louisville, Kentucky to the home of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to protest the fact that the three officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor back on March 13th have still not been charged with anything.......literally anything! They did not try to destroy his house, they simply stood out front and chanted very loudly. For this, they were all charged with a felony, all 87 of them.
Since when was standing out front of someone's house chanting loudly considered a felony? We currently have a massive number of people complaining about rioting and property damage, yet when a group forms a peaceful protest we charge them with a felony? Explain to me how that works. Explain to me how that's remotely fair. And, while you're at it, explain to me why we are arguing over the protest of the lack of justice for someone who was killed for absolutely no reason.
For those of you who don't remember, Breonna Taylor was shot dead in her home on March 13th, 2020 when the police busted down her door serving a "no knock" warrant and began unloading every gun they carried, blindly spraying bullets in every direction. Here's some facts, because I know plenty of people will argue this one:
Taylor was an active Emergency Room Technician with dreams of becoming a Nurse. You know, the kind of people that just a few short months ago we were praising as "heroes". This lady literally wanted to save lives, that was her chosen career path.
The "no knock" warrant wasn't even for Taylor, it was for Jamarcus Glover, someone Taylor didn't even know. Glover had allegedly been using Taylor's address for receiving packages, so police assumed Taylor knew Glover.
The police busted down Taylor's door wearing plain clothes. These were not men dressed in SWAT or even Police uniforms, they were wearing jeans and t shirts, just like you and me.
Taylor's boyfriend, Kenny Walker, responded by grabbing his gun and firing a single shot. That shot was met with more than 20 rounds being emptied into the room in every direction, 8 of which struck Taylor leaving her dead in her hallway. Not a single bullet hit Walker, the man who fired the single shot.
So let's pull this all together, shall we?
A group of guys dressed in jeans and t shirts bust down your door shortly after midnight, what would you do? My guess is you'd respond exactly like Walker did and quickly grab your gun and fire off a round. I say this because I've seen all of your social media posts where you praise others for doing exactly that. "Homeowner Shoots Invader"......"Robbers Pick Wrong House, Man With Concealed-Carry Shoots Intruders Dead"......those are the headlines people share. This is exactly what Walker did, he defended his home from three people dressed in jeans and t shirts who kicked down his door shortly after midnight.
Kenny Stills attended George Floyd's funeral service in Houston and has been active in peaceful protests of systematic police brutality against the black community. He's not out there burning down your precious WalMart or Target, he's organizing groups of people who peacefully stand at a given location and chant words. This time the given location was the home of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
For his efforts, Stills was arrested and charged with a felony........a felony!
What felony? Is chanting words on a street corner that big of a crime? I see thousands of people who loudly proclaim "1st Amendment!" when it suits their rhetoric. But in this case those same people will point to some obscure law that really doesn't apply here. The "felony" in this instance was noted as "intimidating a participant in the legal process". How is standing on a street corner chanting words "intimidating a participant in the legal process"? The real crime here is the fact that not one charge has been brought against the three officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor. We're literally four months later and not a single charge has been filed. In fact, only one officer was even removed from duty, not for her death but for "conduct unbecoming" because he fired his entire clip without even aiming at anything. They won't even admit that this officer shot and killed an innocent woman, they just went with "you need to aim bro".
At some point we have to face the fact that there's a problem in this Country. When we aren't even allowed to peacefully protest the senseless death of a woman who spent her life trying to save lives, where do we go from here? When we can't even stop to admit that these officers were in the wrong, where do we go from here? When our only rebuttal is "yeah, but what about this thing over here........", where do we go from here?
I don't have the answers, but I'm also not willing to just ignore this. We ALL need a voice, and it has to start with the ones who literally have no voice.
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