By Althea Champion
On Fri. March 13th, Breonna Taylor was shot six times by Lousiville police officers and bled to death on the floor of her own apartment.
Six months later, one officer is indicted for wanton endangerment for his crime of unloading a firearm of bullets aimlessly into an apartment building. The other two officers concerned with the murder, whose bullets killed 26-year-old Taylor, are uncharged. By the end of the week, an audio recording of the court deliberations that decided these charges will be released.
Taylor, as she has come to be known by the nation, was working as an EMT. She had begun a relationship with a man her friends and family liked, and was nurturing plans for the future when police broke through her door with a battering ram and killed her.
The jury concluded that the behavior of the two uncharged officers was justified. They had a warrant, they reportedly announced their arrival, and they were fired on once by Taylor’s boyfriend, who does not report hearing their announcement, who legally owns a gun, and who feared for his life. This came more than two weeks after city officials agreed to pay Taylor’s family $12 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.
The ruling was met with a wave of protests across the country comparable to those that were in response to her death—this time with more fervor.
Tapes of the deliberations that decided Taylor’s case are now set to be released, as a result of an unnamed juror filing a complaint, claiming that the Republican Kentucky attorney general, Daniel Cameron, mishandled Taylor’s case.
According to Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times, the juror asked for the transcripts of the grand jury’s deliberations and a statement from the judge. Cameron agreed.
Cameron has since asked for a one-week delay that he says would allow him more time to ensure the privacy of witnesses. The preceding judge granted him a lesser extension of two days.
The release of the audio recording is set for tomorrow, exactly 29 weeks after Taylor’s untimely death.
