MadameNoire
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Breonna Taylor’s family isn’t done fighting for justice. The family has filed a lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department for allegedly withholding public records that would indicate if there is more body camera footage from the night of Taylor’s death, ABC reported.
“Breonna’s family has a right to the records,” Taylor family attorney Sam Aguiar told ABC. “The public has a right to the records. I’m just tired of the administration playing their games when it comes to open records. No mother who lost a child should have to be lied to and deceived in the manner that this administration has done. So we’re going to rely upon the Court system here to try and put these games to rest.”
LMPD has claimed that there isn’t any footage of the shooting because officers either were not wearing body cameras or they were turned off. The body camera footage that has been provided shows her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, being arrested.
The lawsuit stated that all of the officers at the scene had new body cameras that can be activated and signaled to record when a police officer’s vehicle’s light bar turns on. According to lawsuit, most of the vehicles at the scene had their light bar activated.
The lawsuit stated:
“Simply put, it would have been difficult for most of the LMPD members with body cameras … to not have had their Axon body cameras activated at one point or another. Even those who may have left cameras in vehicles or other locations should have been activated to an event mode from a buffering mode, so long as the camera was within range of Signal unit.”
Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, told ABC News that she will continue to fight until someone is held accountable for her daughter’s death.
“From day one, my goal has been to learn the truth about what happened to my daughter, Breonna Taylor, and to hold those accountable for her murder responsible,” she said. “I, along with my family and the public, have a right to know if additional body camera footage exists and the information sought through this open records lawsuit will give us this information.”
The three officers that entered Taylor’s home on March 13, 2020, Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove and Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly, fired a total of 32 shots that night. None of them have been charged with Taylor’s death. Hankison and Cosgrove were fired from the police force as a result of their actions. Hankison was then charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing shots into a neighboring apartment.
