The City of Louisville is expected to announce Tuesday a “substantial” financial settlement with the family of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman shot and killed by police in her apartment six months prior, reports The Courier Journal. A source with knowledge of details of the case told the paper that the announcement could come as early as 2 p.m., but could not disclose the amount publicly. In addition to a financial settlement, the deal will reportedly include police reform standards, including a requirement that commanders approve all search warrants before they are submitted to a judge, housing credits for officers who live within the city and the ability to perform drug and alcohol testing on officers involved in any shooting.
This civil settlement comes as a grand jury prepares to screen Taylor’s death as a criminal case as early as this week, deciding if charges should be filed against Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly or detectives Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove, who were involved in the EMT’s shooting death March 13 during an attempted “no-knock” search of her apartment shortly after midnight in connection with a narcotics investigation centered 10 miles away.
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While police claim they knocked and announced their presence before battering down the door, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said he and Taylor didn’t know who was entering the apartment, which is why he fired a “warning shot” that police said hit Mattingly in the leg. The three officers fired back, and Taylor was shot five times in her hallway before dying.
Amid the backlash surrounding her death, Hankinson was fired, and Cosgrove and Mattingly remain on administrative reassignment. Taylor’s family filed suit on April 27 against the three officers, alleging her life was wrongfully ended and that police used excessive force while performing a grossly negligent search. Two months later, an amended complaint alleged that Louisville police were attempting to clear Taylor’s block for gentrification, and that the new Place-Based Investigations unit consisted of “rogue police” who violated “all levels of policy, protocol and policing standards,” as per The Courier-Journal. While officials have denied the role of gentrification in Taylor’s death, her family’s attorney alleges in the lawsuit that the warrant served at Taylor’s apartment was targeted at Jamarcus Glover, whom police had located at a house 10 miles away before the warrant was ever served at Taylor’s apartment.
