EMT and aspiring nurse Breonna Taylor, 26, was shot to death by police in her own home on March 13. In what has been described as a “botched raid,” officers barged into Taylor’s apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, as she lay sleeping, and fired multiple rounds. Months after she was senselessly killed, Taylor’s name has been chanted all over the country at mass protests against racist police brutality, which erupted after the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, also at the hands of police. On September 23 — over six months after Taylor was killed — just one of the officers involved in the shooting was indicted by a grand jury. Officer Brett Hankison faces three charges of wanton endangerment, a class D felony that carries a penalty of one to five years in prison. Five days later, amid outrage over the decision, one member of that grand jury asked that the proceedings be made public, “so that the truth may prevail.”
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Taylor was shot eight times by law enforcement. According to a lawsuit filed by her family, her killing was the result of a botched drug-warrant execution. No drugs were found; the warrant in question targeted another person, who lived miles away and had already been detained by the time police entered Taylor’s home.
Taylor’s case languished for weeks before attracting national attention. Her family retained lawyer Benjamin Crump, who is also representing some family members of both Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. Crump filed the lawsuit on April 27, accusing police of wrongful death, excessive force, and gross negligence. The Taylor family sought compensatory and punitive damages, as well as legal fees, through a jury trial, and the city of Louisville settled the suit in September for $12 million.
“I just think she was destined to be great,” Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, told the Cut. “Breonna just loved life, and people gravitated towards her. She lit up a room and had this aura about herself.”
Here’s what we know about Breonna Taylor’s case:
What happened to Breonna Taylor?
According to the Taylor family’s lawsuit, plainclothes police officers arrived at Taylor’s apartment at around 12:30 a.m. on March 13. Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep in a bedroom and woke up suddenly, believing that someone was breaking in. Police officers — later identified as Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove — entered “without knocking and without announcing themselves as police officers,” the lawsuit says. LMPD insists they “knocked on the door several times and announced their presence as police who were there with a search warrant.” The lawsuit contends that multiple neighbors gave statements contradicting this claim.
On May 22, county prosecutor Tom Wine held a press conference in which he played audio from Walker’s police interrogation. Walker said that “there was a loud bang at the door,” but no one said they were police. Walker said Taylor asked multiple times “at the top of her lungs,” “Who is it?” “Nobody announced themselves or anything,” Walker says in the audio. “If I would have heard at the door, ‘It’s the police,’ it changes the whole situation. There’s nothing for us to be scared of … We could have opened the door like, ‘What’s the problem, what’s going on?’ … The only reason I had the gun was because we didn’t know who it was, if we knew who it was that would have never happened.”
“While police may claim to have identified themselves, they did not. Mr. Walker and Ms. Taylor again heard a large bang on the door,” Walker’s attorney wrote in a motion. “Again, when they inquired there was no response that there was police outside. At this point, the door suddenly explodes. Counsel believes that police hit the door with a battering ram.” In the interrogation audio, Walker said the door “came off its hinges.”
Taylor’s mother told the Washington Post that she had received a call from Walker, who said someone was trying to break into the apartment before shouting, “I think they shot Breonna.” According to his attorney, Walker fired a shot in self-defense and struck an officer in the leg. Walker is a licensed firearm carrier. In response, police opened fire, shooting more than 20 rounds into Taylor’s home, striking objects in the living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and both bedrooms. Taylor was shot at least eight times, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Walker was arrested and charged with assault and attempted murder on a police officer. Later in the month, he was released from jail on home incarceration, and on May 26, the charges against him were dismissed. The three officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative reassignment pending the outcome of an investigation in May.
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