City to pay $12m to Taylor family, reform police
The city of Louisville agreed to pay $12 million (NZ$17.8m) to the family of Breonna Taylor and reform police practices as part of a settlement announced yesterday, months after Taylor’s slaying by police thrust the black woman’s name to the forefront of a national reckoning on race.
But Taylor’s mother said more must be done to right the wrongs of racial injustice in America.
‘‘Please continue to say her name,’’ Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, declared at an emotional news conference, evoking the call that has become a national refrain for those outraged by the shooting and police violence.
Taylor’s death sparked months of protests in Louisville and calls nationwide for the officers to be criminally charged. The state’s attorney general, Daniel Cameron, is investigating police actions in the March 13 fatal shooting.
‘‘I cannot begin to imagine Ms Palmer’s pain, and I am deeply, deeply sorry for Breonna’s death,’’ said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer in announcing the terms of the lawsuit settlement. Standing nearby as the mayor spoke, Palmer said the police reforms were not enough.
‘‘We must not lose focus on what the real job is, and with that being said, it’s time to move forward with the criminal charges, because she deserves that and much more,’’ Palmer said. ‘‘As significant as today is, it’s only the beginning of getting full justice for Breonna.’’
The lawsuit, filed by Palmer in April, accused police of using flawed information when they obtained a ‘‘no-knock’’ warrant to enter the 26-year-old woman’s apartment. Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were roused from bed by police, and Walker said he fired once at the officers, thinking they were intruders. Investigators say police were returning fire when they shot Taylor several times. No drugs were found at her home.
Palmer left the news conference with one of her attorneys, Ben Crump, and met protesters at the nearby park. She surveyed the original art of her daughter, prayed and wiped away tears.
She had just two words to say: ‘‘Pressure applied,’’ a saying her daughter often used as an emergency medical tech.
Crump said the payout is the largest such settlement given out for a black woman killed by police.
The settlement, ‘‘sets a precedent for black people,‘‘ he said. ‘‘When (police) kill us we expect full justice. We expect justice for the civil rights that you took from this human being. And then we expect full justice from the criminal justice system.’’
In the time since Taylor’s shooting, her death – along with George Floyd and others – has become a rallying cry for protesters seeking a reckoning on racial justice and police reform.
Palmer’s lawsuit accuses three Louisville police officers of blindly firing into Taylor’s apartment the night of the raid, striking Taylor several times. One of the officers, Jonathan Mattingly, went into the home after the door was broken down and was struck in the leg by the gunshot from Walker.
The warrant was one of five issued in a wide-ranging investigation of a drug trafficking suspect who was a former boyfriend of Taylor’s. That man, Jamarcus Glover, was arrested at a different location about 16 kilometres away from Taylor’s apartment on the same evening.
The settlement includes reforms on how warrants are handled by police, Fischer said.
Other reforms seek to build stronger community connections by establishing a housing credit programme to encourage officers to live in certain low-income areas in the city. Officers will also be encouraged to perform two paid hours of volunteer work every two weeks in the communities where they serve. The city will also track police use-of-force incidents and citizen complaints.
The city has taken other reform measures, including passing a law named for Taylor that bans the use of the no-knock warrants.
Fischer fired former police chief Steve Conrad in June and last week named Yvette Gentry, a former deputy chief, as the new interim police chief. Gentry would be the first black woman to lead the force of about 1200 sworn officers. The department has also fired Brett Hankison, one of the three officers who fired shots at Taylor’s apartment that night. Hankison is appealing the dismissal. –