Breonna Taylor’s family and their attorney have asked Kentucky Gov. Andy Bashear for a new special prosecutor and grand jury, a day after recordings of testimony in the first hearing were released.
The letter, posted on civil rights attorney Ben Crump’s firm webpage, also doubles as a petition, requesting signatures of those in support of the request. By 9 p.m. Sunday, the letter had garnered nearly 8,000.
“It’s an affront to justice that after Louisville police officers unlawfully broke into Breonna Taylor’s apartment and fatally shot her five times, only one officer faces minor charges, and for the bullets that didn’t hit Ms. Taylor,” the letter stated.
The grand jury declined to issue murder charges in the killing of the 26-year-old EMT and aspiring nurse, who police shot to death while executing a no-knock warrant back in March. The only criminal charges were laid against now-former Louisville Metro Police officer Brett Hankison, for wanton endangerment after he fired into the neighboring white family’s apartment.
Taylor and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Kenneth Walker, were nodding off while watching a movie when police burst in seeking Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who did not live there and was already in custody. They testified that they had announced themselves as police, but Walker said he heard nothing of the kind. Taylor died at the scene.
After a three-day hearing, a grand jury on Sept. 23 returned no criminal charges related to Taylor’s death, and protests erupted once again across the nation demanding more accountability.
Last week, one of the jurors sued to get the testimony made public and, on Saturday, 15 hours of recordings were released.
The family said that state Attorney General Daniel Cameron “did not serve as an unbiased prosecutor in this case and intentionally did not present charges to the grand jury that would have pursued justice for Ms. Taylor.”
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