The family of Breonna Taylor, a decorated Louisville EMT who was fatally shot by police, has hired a prominent civil rights attorney with the Black Lives Matter movement in their lawsuit against three officers.
What We Know:
- 26 year old Taylor was shot eight times by Louisville Metro Police officers who entered her apartment around 1 a.m. March 13. Police have said the officers were serving a search warrant as part of a narcotics investigation, but no drugs were found at the home.
- Jonathan Mattingly and Officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove entered Taylor’s residence without knocking or identifying themselves as police, according to the family’s lawsuit, which cited statements from multiple neighbors.
- Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were awakened by the officers’ entry and believed their home was being broken into, the suit says.
- According to PEOPLE, reports state police say Walker shot Mattingly. Walker faces criminal charges of first-degree assault and attempted murder of a police officer, but no drug charges. The suit states that Walker has a license to carry and kept firearms in the home for protection. Taylor had no criminal record.
- The lawsuit alleges that police fired more than 20 rounds into Taylor’s home, striking objects in the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, both bedrooms and into an adjacent residence where a 5-year-old child and pregnant mother were present.
- Taylor’s family is calling on lawyer Benjamin Crump, a Tallahassee, Florida-based attorney who has become known for his involvement in high-profile cases of black Americans killed in controversial shootings, including Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.
Crump also is representing the family of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was shot and killed by two white men in Georgia in late February. The case has drawn national attention after a video of Arbery’s death surfaced online last week.
