U.S: EMT shot dead during police raid for man already in custody: lawsuit

A black EMT was shot dead in her own bed by Kentucky cops who “blindly fired” more than 20 times during a botched raid –for a suspect who was already in custody, according to a lawsuit.
Breonna Taylor, 26, was asleep with her boyfriend when three undercover cops burst into her Louisville home at 1 a.m. on March 13 “without knocking and without announcing themselves as police officers,” according to the lawsuit filed last month.
The officers “then proceeded to spray gunfire into the residence with a total disregard for the value of human life,” according to the lawsuit.
“Shots were blindly fired by the officers,” the suit says, with bullets piercing a neighboring home where a pregnant woman and her five-year-old child were sleeping.
“Breonna Taylor was shot at least eight times by the officers’ gunfire and died as a result.
“Breonna had posed no threat to officers and did nothing to deserve to die at their hands,” the lawsuit said, calling her a “young, beautiful human being who was also an essential front-line medical professional.”
In fact, the suspect the officers were hunting “had already been apprehended” earlier that morning in his own home, the suit says.
Louisville Metro Police previously said the trio of officers only opened fire when Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker — who had a weapons’ license — opened fire at them when they burst in.
However, the lawsuit insisted that he had a “lawful right” to shoot when the “defendants’ unannounced entry” left them convinced they were “in significant, imminent danger,” noting he called 911.
The suit against Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as legal fees through a jury trial.
Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, told the Louisville Courier-Journal the death had “affected so many” family and friends.
“I’m not sure that they understand what they took from my family,” she told the paper.
The family has now hired Benjamin Crump, an attorney who worked on high-profile shootings like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown — and is part of the team repping the family of Georgian jogger Ahmaud Arbery.
“They had the wrong address AND their real suspect was already in custody. 2 months later, no one has been held accountable for her death… but we will change that!” Crump vowed in a tweet Monday.
“The case deserves national attention because the police executed an innocent woman,” Crump told the Courier Journal.
“Had the police followed their own policies and procedures, Breonna Taylor would be alive today. She wouldn’t be a trending hashtag.”
Walker was arrested for allegedly hitting one of the officers and faces criminal charges of first-degree assault and attempted murder of a police officer, but no drug charges, the paper said.
Crump called the boyfriend’s arrest “a red herring and deflection to try to not answer the more serious questions.”
Louisville Metro Police declined to comment to the paper, citing an ongoing internal investigation.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer on Tuesday insisted there would be a “thorough investigation” and saying his priority “is that the truth comes out and for justice to follow the path of truth.”
“Police work can involve incredibly difficult situations. Additionally, residents have rights,” Fischer said in a statement. “These two concepts will and must be weighed by our justice system as the case proceeds.”