“This is how the system operates: Taxpayers fund police, who kill Black and Brown people at genocidal rates, and then we, the people, are left to foot the bill.”

After a heartbreaking lack of justice served in Louisville, Kentucky this week, Tirhakah Love wrote “Breonna Taylor’s Killers Got Off — and We’re the Ones Paying for It,” unpacking the history and ironic emptiness of civil settlements for police brutality in America. While payouts from such settlements are growing larger, they do nothing to address the structures and practices that breed police misconduct—effectively penalizing citizens for the systemic rot.