The Decisions on the Breonna Taylor Case by Samuel Feemster

Our FBI SWAT team rehearsed executing a dynamic entry ad infinitum. Each scenario was different, but the tactical precision remained constant. We learned to think in each space occupied, identify anticipated dangers and threats, and respond appropriately.  We were always conscious of the possibility of legitimate human error or because of personal biases and prejudices, reckless and wanton human behavior under the color of law. It was tough being fully occupied by a battering ram in the presence of known dangers and threats. It was also tough knowing the risk and threat our competent man-sized SWAT team posed to the innocent, the traumatized, and flawed citizens residents of communities where agencies and departments typically dynamically execute authorized no-knock warrants.

Experience and insights acquired during field investigations, research, and course development and facilitation at the FBI National Academy affirmed the truth about our imperfect judicial system’s ultimate intent–facts documented in our Case Law that sustains America’s Caste System. Our judicial system is working just the way the designers intended. Some of America’s citizens are content with our judiciary and the law’s long arm’s adverse impact. They remain silent in the wake of consistent disparities. Other citizens experience disquiet in the face of the persistent deception of representing injustice as justice. They protest injustice as if somehow our government has the will to secure liberty and justice for all. It does not!

The decision in the Breonna Taylor case greatly disturbs and disappoints me. I hope America will be a nation where all citizens expect and experience justice and liberty. My hope is diminishing.  My desire for the dominant church in America to influence the judiciary and police for the common good is frustrated. I am a Black man in America who believes wholeheartedly in Biblical Justice—a man who advocates that policing at its best is an ordained vocation, same as pastoring, or serving as a Supreme Court Justice, for example. I also believe the abuse and corruption in our judicial system originate in errant theological themes. Ten years into my FBI career, it became clear that citizens best serve communities in public and private marketplaces and across all disciplines through conduct that dismantle unjust systems in ways that build relationships and bridge differences. Absent this moral compass, enforcing rules without relationships does not make room for redemption or rehabilitation. Biblical justice manifest in redemptive relationships and restoration.

The sanitized details offered in support of the government’s decision in Breonna’s case offer neither consolation in the face of calculated depraved causations and generational traumas nor concepts upon which communities can co-create a preferred future. Responsibility for this debacle is rooted in perverse ideals inculcated in human theories of jurisprudence, justice, and race long before the police action on March 13, 2020—beliefs that are not aligned with God’s righteousness as detailed from Genesis to The Revelation.