Episode 1240
Shooting of Breonna Taylor
Thu, 2020-Sep-24 01:11 UTC
Length - 6:12
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Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a popular Wikipedia page every day.
With 578,735 views on Wednesday, 23 September 2020 our article of the day is Shooting of Breonna Taylor.
Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old woman, was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove on March 13, 2020. Three plainclothes LMPD officers (wearing vests reading "POLICE") entered her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, executing a no-knock search warrant. According to the New York Times, "While the department had gotten court approval for a 'no-knock' entry, the orders were changed before the raid to 'knock and announce,' meaning that the police had to identify themselves." According to the police account and a witness at the scene, the officers knocked and announced their identity before forcing entry, but the police and the witness differ as to how they announced themselves. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, and 11 other witnesses deny that the officers announced themselves at all. Walker and the officers exchanged gunfire. Walker has said that he believed the officers were intruders. The officers fired over 20 shots. Taylor was shot five times, according to her death certificate, and LMPD Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly was injured by gunfire. Another officer and an LMPD lieutenant were on the scene when the warrant was executed. The primary targets of the LMPD investigation were Jamarcus Glover and Adrian Walker, who were suspected of selling controlled substances from a drug house more than 10 miles away. According to a Taylor family attorney, Glover had dated Taylor two years before and continued to have a "passive friendship". The search warrant included Taylor's residence because it was suspected that Glover received packages containing drugs at Taylor's apartment and because a car registered to Taylor had been seen parked on several occasions in front of Glover's house. Specifically, the warrant alleges that in January 2020, Glover left Taylor's apartment with an unknown package, presumed to be drugs, and subsequently went to a known drug apartment with this package soon afterward. This warrant states that this event was verified "through a US Postal Inspector." In May 2020, the U. S. postal inspector in Louisville publicly announced that the collaboration with law enforcement had never actually occurred. The postal office stated they were actually asked to monitor packages going to Taylor's apartment from a different agency, but after doing so, they concluded, "There's [sic] no packages of interest going there." The public revelation put the investigation and especially the warrant into question and resulted in an internal investigation. No drugs were found in Taylor's apartment after the warrant was executed. Kenneth Walker, who was licensed to carry a firearm and under the assumption someone was breaking into his apartment, fired first, injuring a law enforcement officer, whereupon police returned fire into the apartment with more than 20 rounds. A wrongful death lawsuit filed against the police by the Taylor family's attorney alleges that the officers, who entered Taylor's home "without knocking and without announcing themselves as police officers", opened fire "with a total disregard for the value of human life", but the police account claims the officers did knock and announce themselves before forcing entry. A New York Times investigation concluded that a neighbor heard the officers shout "Police!" once (contrary to what law enforcement told investigators) and knocked three times, while 11 other neighbors heard no announcement. Every witness account conflicts with law enforcement's. A neighbor involved in the New York Times investigation filed a lawsuit against the officers involved in the raid. The lawsuit claims, among other things, that a man was nearly shot, that law enforcement "spray[ed] gunfire into Chelsey Napper's apartment with a total disregard for the value of human life" and "A bullet that was shot from the defendant police officers' gun flew inches past Cody Etherton's head while he was in the hallway of Chelsey Napper's apartment". The man is unidentified; Napper is understood to be a pregnant woman and Etherton is understood to be a child. On June 23, 2020, Officer Brett Hankison was fired for his actions during the raid. In his termination letter, his chief says Hankison's conduct "displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life" and is a "shock to the conscience" as he "wantonly and blindly fired ten (10) rounds." The chief blamed him for the gunshots that led to the Napper lawsuit. On September 15, 2020, the City of Louisville agreed to pay Taylor's family $12 million and reform police practices as part of a settlement. On September 23, 2020, a state grand jury indicted Brett Hankison on three counts of wanton endangerment for his actions that led to the near-death situation in Napper's apartment. The two other officers involved in the raid were not indicted, and while Hankison was indicted for his actions during the Breonna Taylor raid, he was not indicted for Taylor's death specifically.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:11 UTC on Thursday, 24 September 2020.
For the full current version of the article, see Shooting of Breonna Taylor on Wikipedia.
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This has been Joey Standard. Thank you for listening to popular Wiki of the Day.
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