Attorneys for the family of an unarmed female Louisville EMT shot and killed by police officers in her own home say officers used “false information” to obtain the “no knock” warrant they used to burst into her apartment, WDRB reported.
Breonna Taylor, 26, was hit eight times by the spray of bullets Louisville Metro officers unleashed on March 13 after she and her boyfriend were awakened by their entry, and the boyfriend, believing burglars were breaking in, fired a shot from his own legal weapon, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, has been charged with attempted murder and assault because his bullet struck a police sergeant in the leg.
Officers were looking for a drug suspect who allegedly dated Taylor two years earlier. Jamarcus Glover was arrested in a separate raid about 10 miles away from Taylor’s house at almost the exact time officers broke into her apartment.
The affidavit used to obtain the warrant for Taylor’s apartment said that a detective had seen Glover pick up a USPS package at Taylor’s home and drive to a “known drug house.” The same detective said that he had verified “through a US Postal Inspector” that Glover had been receiving packages at Taylor’s address.
But a Louisville postal inspector, Tony Gooden, told WDRB that Louisville police did not check with his office about Taylor’s address. Gooden told the station that another law enforcement agency had asked his office in January to investigate for suspicious mail arriving at Taylor’s home, but that the office concluded there was none.
“There’s no packages of interest going there,” Gooden told WDRB News on Friday.
Civil rights Benjamin Crump, who recently joined with the local attorneys representing Taylor’s family’s wrongful death lawsuit, said that Gooden’s statement “directly contradicts what the police stated in the affidavit to secure a no-knock warrant for her home.”
Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine has recused himself from reviewing the p0lice action at Taylor’s apartment because he is prosecuting Walker. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has been appointed a special prosecutor to decide whether charges will be filed against the officers.
Earlier this week, the family attorneys released photos from inside the apartment a broad range of places police bullets struck, the Louisville Courier Journal reported. They say police fired indiscriminately from inside and outside the apartment.
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[Featured image: Breonna Taylor/Facebook]
