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NY Times, May 15, 2020
Months After Louisville Police Kill Woman in Her Home, Governor Calls
for Review
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Two months after Louisville police officers fatally shot a woman as they
raided her home, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Wednesday that
local, state and federal prosecutors should review the police
investigation into the shooting.
Officers killed the woman, Breonna Taylor, 26, just after midnight on
March 13 during a confrontation in which her boyfriend shot an officer
in the leg, the Louisville police said. But only recently has nationwide
attention been drawn to the case. Neither Ms. Taylor nor her boyfriend
was a target of the police investigation that led to the drug raid.
Ms. Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, filed a lawsuit in late April
against three officers with the Louisville Metro Police Department,
accusing them of wrongfully causing her daughter’s death.
Among the lawyers representing Ms. Palmer is Benjamin Crump, who also
represents the family of Ahmaud Arbery, whose February shooting death in
Georgia led to murder charges against two men last week.
On Wednesday, Governor Beshear called reports about Ms. Taylor’s death
“troubling” and said the public deserved to know everything about the
March raid. He asked the state attorney general, the local prosecutor
and the federal prosecutor assigned to the region to review the results
of the Louisville police’s initial investigation “to ensure justice is
done at a time when many are concerned that justice is not blind.”
The Louisville police, who declined to comment for this article, have
said little about the raid since a news conference on the day it happened.
The Louisville Courier-Journal reported this week that the police had
been targeting two men who they believed were selling drugs out of a
house more than 10 miles from Ms. Taylor’s apartment. However, a judge
had signed a warrant allowing officers to search Ms. Taylor’s home — and
to enter without warning — in part because a detective said one of the
men had used Ms. Taylor’s apartment to receive a package.
In the lawsuit, Ms. Palmer’s lawyers say that the man had already been
apprehended before police officers entered Ms. Taylor’s home.
“They executed this innocent woman because they botched the search
warrant execution,” Mr. Crump said in an interview. “They had the main
person that they were trying to get in their custody, so why use a
battering ram to bust her door down and then go in there and execute her?”
Mr. Crump said that while there were many differences between the cases
of Mr. Arbery and Ms. Taylor, both of whom were black, they were
connected by the fact that neither case immediately attracted widespread
attention, despite the efforts of local activists and family members.
Ms. Palmer has said that her daughter, who worked as an emergency
medical technician at local hospitals, had planned to become a nurse and
buy a house, and that she had stayed out of trouble.
“I’m not sure that they understand what they took from my family,” Ms.
Palmer told The Courier-Journal, referring to the police.
At a news conference hours after the raid, Chief Steve Conrad of the
Louisville police said the officers involved had not been wearing body
cameras. Lt. Ted Eidem, who leads the agency’s Public Integrity Unit,
said the officers had announced their presence and knocked on the door
before forcing entry.
A police spokeswoman told The Courier-Journal this week that the
investigation into the shooting was continuing and that the police had
disclosed everything they could at the original news conference.
The police have said that they returned fire after Ms. Taylor’s
boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot an officer in the leg. He later
surrendered and has been charged with the attempted murder of a police
officer.
Mr. Walker’s lawyer, Rob Eggert, has said that Mr. Walker did not know
that the people entering the apartment were police officers, and that he
fired one shot.
Mr. Crump said that neighbors had not heard the police officers announce
themselves, and that Mr. Walker thought the officers — who he said were
in unmarked cars and plain clothes — were intruders. He said Mr. Walker
had called 911, believing that he and Ms. Taylor, who had been in bed
together, “were in significant, imminent danger.”
The lawyers for Ms. Taylor’s mother said that Mr. Walker was licensed to
have a gun and that the police officers had fired at least 20 shots into
the apartment and a neighboring home.
Although whether the Louisville police knocked before entering is
disputed, the use of “no-knock” warrants has led to disastrous results
in the past. The Houston Police Department said last year that it would
largely end the practice after two civilians were killed — and four
police officers were injured — in one such raid, which the police had
justified based on an officer’s lie about a supposed confidential informant.
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