Charles Ramsey Reacts to Breonna Taylor Developments

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Breonna Taylor is considered almost like a bystander. The fact that she was killed was not taken into account. And I want to understand your logic and how you would rationalize that kind of decision.

CHARLES RAMSEY, FORMER PHILADELPHIA POLICE COMMISSIONER: Well, again, we’re talking about whether or not criminal charges are appropriate. I agree that 32 shots are an awful lot. If I were the chief there, I would be taking a very hard look to see whether or not that number of rounds being fired was necessary. I’ve also been in situations, I worked narcotics in Chicago for many years. I’ve served hundreds of search warrants literally hundreds of search warrants. It’s a very dangerous thing to execute search warrants. You never know what is on the other side of that door. And, so, it’s just a tough situation. There’s no way of knowing whether she was struck by the first bullet, the last bullet. There’s just no way of knowing. But certainly, that’s something that needs to be looked in to. I had concerns when I heard the number of shots fired and it’s not as if the individual was returning fire in response to the police firing. But, does that constitute a crime? Is there anything in the law that, you know, takes that into account? I’m not a lawyer. I’m certainly not from Kentucky. I don’t know. I don’t know what was presented to the grand jury. But I do know that once the officers were fired upon, they had every right to return fire. The question is, was it proportional, and that’s a hard question to answer.

AMANPOUR: Well, it’s not hard, it’s not hard. I mean, I think everybody knows that 32 bullets in response to one is — we can’t even understand it. I mean, here’s what — let me just read this to you and you can continue. W. Kamau Bell who has a program on CNN called “United Shades of America,” and does many other things in the public domain has tweeted, Brett Hankison is indicted for shooting into the apartment next to Breonna Taylor and not for killing her. He is fired for shooting into Breonna Taylor’s apartment and not for killing her. This is systemic racism. Property is worth more than a black woman. Now, you can talk about the law in Kentucky, but the bottom line is, where is the justice, I guess? A whole community is looking for justice after not just one killing, but decades of it. No, hundreds of years of it.

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, first of all, you have to look at this one case, and I understand the history. I mean, I’m African-American myself. And so, I understand the history and I’ve personally been affected by racism and bias in my life and in my career.