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Louisville
to pay
$12
million
settlement
over
Breonna
Taylor's
death in
botched
police
raid
Maria
Caspani,
Jonathan
Allen
reuters.com
LOUISVILLE,
KY - The
city of
Louisville,
Kentucky,
will pay
$12
million
to the
family
of
Breonna
Taylor,
a Black
woman
shot
dead by
police
in a
botched
raid on
her
apartment
in
March,
to
settle a
wrongful-death
lawsuit,
Mayor
Greg
Fischer
said on
Tuesday.
The
settlement
appears
to be
one of
the
largest
of its
kind in
the
United
States,
where
police
departments
are
often
shielded
from
having
to pay
damages
for
deaths
in their
custody.
It
does not
explicitly
admit
wrongdoing
on the
city’s
part,
but it
will be
accompanied
by
reforms
of the
Louisville
Metro
Police
Department,
including
a
requirement
that
commanders
approve
search
warrants
before
they are
put to a
judge,
Fischer
said at
a news
conference.
No
police
officer
has been
criminally
charged
over
Taylor’s
death,
but the
Kentucky
Attorney
General
Daniel
Cameron,
a Black
Republican,
is
expected
to bring
the case
before a
grand
jury
this
week,
according
to local
media
reports.
“I’m
deeply,
deeply
sorry
for
Breonna’s
death,”
Fischer,
who is
white,
told
reporters.
“My
administration
is not
waiting
to move
ahead
with
needed
reforms
to
prevent
a
tragedy
like
this
from
ever
happening
again.”
Taylor’s
death,
alongside
that of
George
Floyd, a
Black
man
killed
in May
by a
white
Minneapolis
police
officer
who
knelt on
his
neck,
gave
rise to
one of
the
largest
protest
movements
in U.S.
history,
with
daily
demonstrations
in
cities
ever
since.
The
mayor
was
joined
by
Taylor’s
family
and
local
activists,
who said
they
welcomed
the
settlement
but also
demanded
the
officers
involved
face
criminal
charges.
“As
significant
as today
is, it
is only
the
beginning
of
getting
full
justice
for
Breonna,”
said
Tamika
Palmer,
Taylor’s
mother,
her
voice at
times
shaking
with
emotion.
“It’s
time to
move
forward
with the
criminal
charges
because
she
deserves
that and
much
more.”
The
mayor
invited
Tamika
Mallory,
the
co-founder
of
activist
group
Until
Freedom,
to the
podium,
where
she said
there
would be
“no
peace”
if the
officers
involved
were not
charged.
“A
settlement
is
restitution,
but it’s
not
arresting
the
cops,”
she
said.
The
settlement
appeared
to be
one of
the
largest
ever
after a
police
killing
in the
United
States,
Benjamin
Crump, a
lawyer
for the
family,
told
reporters.
The
family
of
Philando
Castile,
a Black
motorist
shot and
killed
by a
police
officer
during a
traffic
stop in
Minnesota,
was
awarded
$3
million
in 2017;
in 2016,
Cleveland
officials
agreed
to pay a
$6
million
settlement
to Tamir
Rice’s
family
after he
was shot
dead by
a police
officer.
As
part of
Tuesday’s
settlement,
Fischer
said
Louisville
police
officers
will be
offered
housing
credits
to move
to some
of the
poorest
parts of
the city
in the
hopes of
improving
community
ties.
They
will
also be
encouraged
to
regularly
volunteer
for
community
organizations
and will
face
increased
random
testing
for drug
use.
Taylor,
a
26-year-old
emergency
medical
technician,
was
killed
on March
13 when
Louisville
police
forced
their
way into
her
apartment
shortly
after
midnight
using a
so-called
‘no-knock’
arrest
warrant
that did
not
require
them to
announce
themselves.
Louisville
police
obtained
the
warrant
from a
judge as
part of
an
investigation
into a
drug
ring at
another
house
elsewhere
in the
city.
They
told the
judge
that
they
believed
that one
of the
men
suspected
of
selling
drugs
had used
Taylor’s
apartment
to
receive
packages.
Taylor
had
previously
dated
the
suspected
drug
seller
but had
severed
ties
with
him,
according
to her
family.
In
June,
the
police
department
fired
one of
the
three
officers
involved,
detective
Brett
Hankison,
who is
white,
for
displaying
“extreme
indifference
to the
value of
human
life”
when he
fired
ten
bullets
into
Taylor’s
apartment.
The
two
other
officers
have
been
reassigned
to
administrative
duties.
The city
also
banned
the use
of
no-knock
warrants.
Fischer
declined
to agree
to the
family’s
request
that he
commit
to
firing
all the
officers
involved
even if
they are
not
indicted.
A
Reuters
investigation
here
this
year
found
U.S.
police
have
been
largely
shielded
from
having
to pay
financial
settlements
to
victims
or their
grieving
families,
except
in
high-profile
cases.
Reporting
by
Nathan
Layne in
Wilton,
Connecticut
and
Jonathan
Allen
and
Maria
Caspani
in New
York;
Editing
by
Howard
Goller
and
Rosalba
O’Brien
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