A 26-year-old emergency health worker was shot and killed in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by police executing a “botched’ search warrant who forced their way in, surprising the woman and her boyfriend who were in bed. She was shot eight times, her family said.
The EMT, Breonna Taylor, and her boyfriend were asleep when police burst in and immediately opened fire her family lawyer Ben Crump said in a lawsuit, according to NBC News.
Officers had the wrong address and used a battering ram to enter the Louisville apartment without warning and were searching for a suspect who was already in custody, court documents say, NBC News reported.
The lawsuit says Taylor and Walker woke up and thought criminals were breaking in. Walker called 911.
“The defendants then proceeded to spray gunfire into the residence with a total disregard for the value of human life,” the lawsuit alleges. “Shots were blindly fired by the officers all throughout Breonna’s home.”
Taylor’s boyfriend is still being held after the raid, while no police officer has been charged over her death.
The police department “has not provided any answers regarding the facts and circumstances of how this tragedy occurred, nor have they taken responsibility for her senseless killing,” Crump said in a statement.
A lawsuit was filed last month accusing officers of wrongful death, excessive force and gross negligence, according to the report.
The senseless killing has triggered a fresh wave of anger in the United States over officers shooting unarmed black civilians.
Taylor “was one of the healthcare professionals helping us through this pandemic. But even as she helped to save lives, police violence took hers,” said the verified Black Lives Matter Twitter account.
Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for action, saying that Taylor “was killed two months ago, and nothing has happened since.”
The officers, identified as Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove, were reassigned pending the outcome of the investigation, according to NBC News.
