The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay millions of dollars in compensation to the family of Breonna Taylor.
Twenty-six-year-old Taylor was fatally shot during a March 13, 2020, police raid on her apartment. The New York Times reports police had a warrant and “used a battering ram to enter the apartment,” believing that “two men…were selling drugs out of a house that was far from Ms. Taylor’s home.”
Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at officers when they entered, and “the police responded by firing several shots,” including the ones that killed Taylor.
NYT notes officers claimed they announced themselves, but Walker claims he did not hear them.
The family filed a suit over Taylor’s death in April and the Courier-Journal reports the settlement the city has agreed to pay will be “substantial.” It is expected to surpass the city’s record settlement of $8.5 million, which was made in a 2012 case involving the wrongful imprisonment of Edward Chandler.
In addition to the money, numerous police reforms are also to be enacted.
WDRB reports some changes have already been made, including a requirement “that all officers…wear and use body cameras when serving warrants.”
On June 10, 2020, WDRB reported there was not body cam footage of the shooting of Taylor. They noted “former Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad… said that members of the Criminal Interdiction Unit were not required to wear body cameras.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.