Breonna Taylor's family, who is currently in a lawsuit against police and the city of Louisville, announced that the slain EMT was still alive after police shot her, but they didn't do anything to save her from dying.
The New York Times reported Monday that Taylor's family said she was alive for up to six minutes after being shot.
"The document also contends that the post-midnight raid on March 13 was motivated by the mayor’s desire to clear a block in one of Louisville’s most blighted neighborhoods for redevelopment," said the report. "The court papers amend an earlier lawsuit against the three officers who fired into Ms. Taylor’s apartment while executing a search warrant, seeking evidence against an ex-boyfriend who was a convicted drug dealer."
Officials in Louisville claim it is a "gross mischaracterization." The coroner who performed her autopsy said that Taylor's injuries would have been lethal even if the police had done something to save her.
“Even if it had happened outside of an ER we couldn’t have saved her,” coroner Dr. Barbara Weakley-Jones explained.
In a 31-page complaint, it is alleged that police were "wanton" and "reckless" in the way that they filed warrants and decided to conduct a no-knock service of the warrant.
“In the six minutes that elapsed from the time Breonna was shot, to the time she died, we have no evidence suggesting that any officer made entry in an attempt to check and assist her,” said the family's lawyer Sam Aguiar. “She suffered."
State officials don't agree, saying that cops did whatever they could, tending to an injured officer before asking Taylor’s friend, Kenneth Walker, come outside. When he was handcuffed, officers then went back in, seeing Taylor dead.
Officers didn't have to serve the no-knock warrant the way they did. It could have been a civilized warrant where they knocked on the door. It could have been served during the day so both sides could see what was happening.
The first 911 calls from neighbors indicate the shooting began around 12:42 a.m. Taylor's time of death was "approximately 12:48," the documents show.
