Breonna Taylor’s mother and legal team met with Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron this week.
On Thursday, Aug. 13, Tamika Palmer, Breonna’s mother, (center) and co-counsels Benjamin Crump (left) and Lonita Baker (right) held a news conference in front of Louisville City Hall.
Crump said he expects there will be criminal charges against the three plainclothes officers who shot and killed Taylor while executing a no-knock warrant at her home in March. They were searching for a drug suspect who was already in custody.
“I absolutely expect there to be charges based on the evidence,” Crump told reporters.
“One hundred and fifty days,” Palmer said. “Every day is still March the 13th.”
Taylor, a 26-year-old Black EMT, was asleep in the early hours of March 13 when three cops served a no-knock narcotics search warrant at her home.
Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, opened fire on the intruders, wounding one of the officers in the leg. The cops returned fire, killing Taylor. Walker was not injured in the shootout. He was arrested but later released without charges.
Former cop Brett Hankison was fired by Louisville Metro Police Department in June. Two other officers — Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove — remain on administrative leave.
Baker said the attorney general didn’t reach out to the family earlier because he was fearful it could compromise the investigation.
“It really speaks to why we should not have the police policing themselves,” Crump said, “because we lost two months while we were letting them try to figure out how to justify the unjustifiable. And so now we’re waiting on ballistics tests over 150 days later?”
The attorney general’s office released a statement after the meeting:
“The meeting provided an opportunity for Attorney General Cameron to personally express his condolences to the family. The investigation remains ongoing, and our Office of Special Prosecutions continues to review all the facts in the case to determine the truth.”
