The Atlanta police officers who killed Kathryn Johnston failed to learn from the department's earlier mistakes.

Two months and a day before Kathryn Johnston, there was Frances Thompson. The 80-year-old Thompson was in her bedroom the afternoon of Sept. 20, when she heard a terrible crash and shouting. Startled and confused, she grabbed a pistol and was immediately confronted by three Atlanta narcotics officers.

"They had masks covering their face. I thought I was being robbed," she recalled. "They pointed those big guns at me." ... No drugs were found. And her pistol was a toy cap gun. ...

The two incidents share striking similarities: Two elderly women living alone with guns; police battering in a door; faulty reports from street-level dealers helping narcotics officers; and police parsing the truth, if not outright lying.

It may be that the officers had no incentive to learn. In their corrupt department, truth and public safety were less important than arrest quotas.

[F]ederal investigators say Atlanta narcotics officers hoped to satisfy goals for making arrests and serving warrants set by police commanders. "They believed that these ends justified their illegal 'Fluffing' or falsifying of search warrants," according to those plea documents.