The death of Breonna Taylor is tragic. The fact that there is rioting by people who either don’t know the truth or don’t care about the truth is even more tragic.

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review today that illustrates some of the facts of the Breonna Taylor case.

The article notes:

The criminal law is not designed to address every human tragedy. That is the lesson of the tragic death of Breonna Taylor. It was also the theme repeatedly struck by Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron on Wednesday, in announcing the indictment of one of the three officers involved in the raid that lead to her death.

The article provides some background of the incident:

Much of what we’ve been told about the case turns out not to be true — another “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” urban legend of police brutality. Most prominently, Attorney General Cameron explained that the police did not execute a “no knock” warrant before entering Ms. Taylor’s apartment. They knocked and announced themselves as police before forcing entry shortly after midnight.

How they came to be at Ms. Taylor’s home, with a search warrant based on probable cause that evidence of narcotics crimes would be found, is the part of the story the social-justice warriors would have us omit. It needs telling.

When she was killed, Breonna Taylor was 26, a hospital emergency-room technician who hoped to become a nurse. But over the years, she had gotten involved with Glover, a 30-year-old twice-convicted drug dealer. Though she was never a targeted suspect, the New York Times reports that Ms. Taylor was entangled in the frequent police investigations of Glover. Taylor remained romantically involved with him though he had spent years in prison.

The article concludes:

Meantime, Hankison [Brett Hankison, then a detective (since fired)], who was in the parking lot outside the apartment, began firing when the commotion he could not have seen began. He sprayed the patio and a window with ten bullets — irresponsibly, to be sure, but fortunately without harming anyone. Hankison, who had a spotty disciplinary record in almost 20 years as a cop, was terminated when police officials judged that his conduct during the raid shocked the conscience.

And now he has been charged, which seems appropriate. What the mob wants, though, is murder charges against the two cops who shot Ms. Taylor. There is no conceivable legal justification for that. The police were properly executing a lawful warrant. There appears to have been more than adequate probable cause for the search in light of Glover’s ties to the apartment. Even if there were any doubt about that, the warrant had been duly authorized and therefore police were entitled to rely on it. And they were fired upon before reasonably responding with lethal force.

What happened to Breonna Taylor was a calamity. That is why the city of Louisville just paid $12 million dollars to settle the wrongful death lawsuit her family filed, rather than trying to fight it. Obviously, the money cannot bring her back to life, and will never be adequate compensation for her loved ones’ loss. But that could also have been said for the politicized filing of unprovable homicide charges. The legal system can only do the best it can; it cannot fully compensate for tragic loss, and its criminal processes are not equipped to address catastrophes that are not crimes.

The state of Kentucky was right not to opt for mob justice. Unfortunately, the mob has a different conception of “justice,” and it is ripping the country apart.

The shooting of this young woman is a tragedy. So are the lies and violence currently surrounding her death.