Last summer, Breonna Taylor's name became a rallying cry for countless demonstrators who called for an end to the violent, racist policing of Black and brown people in cities across the US.
Taylor's name, unfortunately, has been only one name in a list that feels dreadfully infinite.
In Taylor's case, police raided her home when they claimed an ex-boyfriend selling drugs received shipments there. That night, at 26 years old, Taylor was shot 5 times by police and killed.
Her death has been a symbol of injustice in the US law enforcement system.
A Colorado police chief decided to stir the pot and heap the blame on Taylor.
It began when Vernon Knuckles, the Chief of Police in Cortez, Colorado was criticized for making racist posts on his personal Facebook page. Eventually, the criticism swelled large enough he decided to make a selfie video to set the record straight.
But, as the Daily Dot reported, Knuckles' comments in the video served to dig him into an even deeper hole. His video first cropped up after it was posted to the Bad_Cop_No_Donut subReddit.
After spending roughly a minute talking about how he doesn't use Facebook much, he then attempted to explain the motive behind his racist posts.
Knuckles said:
"There was a big narrative out there about Breonna Taylor and the evidence and everything to come out of it, was just absolutely tragic, but it was really shedding bad light on law enforcement like they just ran in there and shot her for nothing,"
"But there was actually criminal ties and stuff. She was involved in a criminal organization."
Taylor's ex-boyfriend, who was not the same man who was at Taylor's apartment, was cited in the warrant for Taylor's apartment that night. The ex publicly denied Taylor had any involvement with any illegal activity.
Police also failed to provide proof of Taylor's involvement in anything illegal
People who saw Knuckles' video on Reddit were appalled someone in his position would say the things he did.
"Sucks to be so stupid you don't recognize your public displays of confused thought have outed you as a bigot." -- Parictis
"Holy sh*t. He is a f'king chief of police and posting all that sh*t? He should be removed immediately." -- yukumizu
"Wow. Everything he says is proof that he should be fired immediately." -- outoftowner2
"Picture a Black chief who posted a bunch of anti-White sh*t being given a chance to explain himself. Lol. This is crazy."
"Gee I wonder why police have a violence problem?" -- e2g4
Those Redditors might have been excited to hear this may be the last we hear from Knuckles, at least in the social media realm.
Later in the video, Knuckles explained he planned to take a break.
"It is probably going to go away, but I don't want people thinking that I am trying to hide something."
"I just want to put it out there that I am probably going to delete the account because I can't read a book and look at Facebook at the same time."
But alas, Daily Dot reported Knuckles' Facebook page is still public. A recently re-posted video on the page described Black Lives Matter as "hateful."
Evidently, even a wave of online backlash isn't enough to keep people like Knuckles offline.
note on @mychal3ts/Threads post
