In Louisville Kentucky, Breonna Taylor’s family recently settled with the municipality for $12 Million after police burst into her apartment unannounced while she was sleeping -- looking in the wrong apartment for someone who as already in custody -- and shot her 16 times. Today, it was announced that a grand jury chose not to indict any of the officers who fired the bullets that killed her; one officer was charged with a Class D felony for firing 10 shots through a window into another apartment, and it’s doubtful that he’ll even be brought to trial.
In Minneapolis, MN, George Floyd died after a police officer placed his knee on his throat for what vest cam footage accessed later revealed was for over 9 minutes; he lost consciousness after telling officers repeatedly that he couldn’t breathe while pleading for his life, and was later pronounced dead at a hospital. While 4 officers have been fired and criminally charged with murder, it’s far from certain that they’ll be convicted of causing his death, and his family has announced a civil lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis. This news comes as a surprise to very few, and it underscores a trend that’s become almost secondary in cases of unarmed black people being killed by police. And while there’s no guarantee of the outcome, the city faces the potential of paying a substantial cash settlement.
In 2019, the Justice Department announced that it would not seek prosecution of the police officer who killed Eric Garner with an illegal chokehold. His family later received a $5 Million settlement in Civil Court. The City of New York paid over $200 Million to settle wrongful death cases against NYPD police officers in the fiscal year 2019.
In February of 1999, while returning home with takeout, suspected of having committed no crime, unarmed Amadou Diallo was shot to death in a hail of 41 bullets after reaching for his rectangular black wallet. The police officers who killed him were ultimately acquitted of all charges. In March 2004, his family accepted a settlement of $3 Million, one of the largest settlements under New York’s “wrongful death” law.
While I could produce an exhaustive list of cases and settlements, the pattern that is emerging is clear: When a person of color is wrongfully killed by police there are sometimes substantial settlements in civil court paid by municipalities, which doesn’t seem to concern (enough) police departments. This brings to question another dilemma: No amount of money can replace a human life of course, but around the country, hundreds of millions of dollars every year are paid to settle complaints against police departments in wrongful death civil suits.
After even a furtive glance a pattern can be seen emerging: While many Americans rail against taxes of any kind, there seems to be an almost complacency in paying out large sums of money to individuals and families once a person of color has fallen victim to police brutality. Viewed in a different light, these payouts have seemingly become an accepted expense to municipalities as an alternative to providing justice. It’s almost as if much of America has become accustomed to paying a “Racism Tax”.
Of course, this doesn’t fit the formal definition of a tax, but it can be argued that it’s a payment that is seemingly the by-product of a societal fee for police brutality cases for the purpose of allowing such behavior to continue. A tax is usually paid as a fee in order to participate in an activity, such as buying, selling, or receiving services. In this case, the police departments and the municipalities they represent are almost regularly paying sometimes enormous “fees” in order to participate in racially profiling and sometimes murdering people of color.
To be sure, police perform a necessary function and their role as law enforcement is a necessary part of any healthy society. But so as long as Americans are lulled by politicians and media into perceiving extreme behavior by police as “necessary” without any attempt to address the underlying causes and means to effectively address them (which would ultimately cost far less in human lives and the number of settlements paid to the families of victims every year), American citizens of color will continue to be victimized and lose their lives to police brutality - and Americans will continue to pay hundreds of millions of dollars every year in “racism taxes”.