NBC News has a good explainer about the tragedy that ensued when Louisville, Kentucky police executed a no-knock search warrant on Taylor in a drug case involving a man who lived in a different part of the city but who police claim was using Taylor’s apartment to receive mail, stash money or keep drugs. The police also claim that Taylor’s car was seen parked in front of a “drug house” connected to that man. But Glover was already in custody before police raided Taylor’s home.
Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep in their apartment when just before 1 a.m. on March 13 three plainclothes officers with the Louisville Metro Police Department arrived to execute a search warrant in a drug case.
The two believed their apartment was being broken into when police busted through the door, according to a lawsuit by Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer.
Walker called 911, grabbed a gun and fired, shooting an officer in the leg. He had a license to carry and kept firearms in the home, and Taylor was unarmed.
The lawsuit accuses the officers of "blindly firing" more than 20 shots into the apartment. Taylor, a former EMT worker, was shot eight times and died. Walker, 27, was arrested and charged with assault and attempted murder on a police officer.
Taylor and Walker had no criminal history or drug convictions, and no drugs were found in the apartment during the raid, the suit states.
One can only imagine the terror Walker and Taylor felt and how that compounded the tragedy. But, why, on top of all that, was Walker arrested and charged with a felony in a “stand your ground” state?
Taylor family attorney Benjamin Crump, also the attorney for Abery’s family, addressed that part of the awful saga with Joy Reid Saturday:
CRUMP: Yes, it is, Joy Reid and you have to ask the question, do African Americans have a right to the Second amendment? I think when you look at what Kenny Walker did, he tried to defend his castle. He tried to defend his woman. He tried to defend their lives but when he says self-defense and stand your ground, the police arrested him immediately and took him to jail and charged him with attempted murder where he's facing life in prison.
Reid went on to note that the Louisville postal inspector refuted one of the justifications for the no-knock warrant in a statement that the police did not use his office to verify that a drug suspect was receiving packages at Taylor's home.The postal inspector also said there were no packages of interest in her home.
So what justification did the police have to enter it at all? None that her family knows of. In fact, Crump said the postal inspector has proved that police used falsehoods to get the no-knock warrant.
Then Crump delivered a powerful call for activism:
But then when Kenny Walker, who was in the bed with Breonna, when the police came in, in plain clothes, we have to remember that, they did not announce themselves. They called 911. They believed that it was a home invasion, that they were going to be burglarized, And so Kenny fired a single shot and then the police shot over 20 rounds - I mean, from the front door, from the back window, from the patio. They were so reckless, Joy, that bullets went into the neighbors’ apartments. A little five-year-old girl was sleeping and had a bullet in her room and Breonna was executed.
When they confronted Kenny Walker, he said we were trying to protect ourselves. It was self-defense. But they arrested him on the spot, put him in jail, he is charged with attempted murder and facing life in prison and he killed nobody.
Now, tell me that is not self-defense and black and white in America.
