Breonna Taylor, the young EMT who was fatally shot in Kentucky in March, was left without medical attention for 20 minutes after she was hit by police gunfire inside her Louisville home.
According to the Courier-Journal, Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker claimed that Taylor, 26, was alive for a period of time after undercover officers raided her home and Walker shot at them, reportedly believing they were intruders. The three officers fired 20 rounds in return, and Taylor, unarmed, was shot five times, and collapsed in a hallway.
According to dispatch records obtained by the Courier-Journal, Taylor lay there for 20 minutes before she received any medical attention. And Walker said in a recorded police interview just after the shooting that during some of those minutes, Taylor — who was a certified EMT with aspirations to be a nurse — was still alive.
“(Police are) yelling like, ‘Come out, come out,’ and I’m on the phone with her (mom). I’m still yelling help because she’s over here coughing and, like, I’m just freaking out,” Walker reportedly told police during an interview three hours after the early-morning shooting on March 13.
As the report notes, the Jefferson County coroner had previously said in an interview with the New York Times that Taylor died within a minute of being shot and had no chance of survival. The coroner has since said that Taylor’s exact time of death cannot be confirmed.
But attorneys for Taylor’s family, who filed a lawsuit in April and recently revised the claim, have said that Taylor was alive for up to six minutes while she was unattended.
“Breonna, who was unarmed in her hallway, was struck by several rounds of gunfire. She was not killed immediately,” attorneys Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker wrote in the revised lawsuit obtained by the Courier-Journal.
“Rather, she lived for another five to six minutes before ultimately succumbing to her injuries on the floor of her home.”
According to the report, the Jefferson County Coroner denied the Courier-Journal’s request for Taylor’s autopsy report, but the newspaper has appealed the denial.
CrimeOnline will provide further updates when more information is available.
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Breonna Taylor: Police release largely blank report on EMT’s death [Report]
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