The family of Breonna Taylor is suing the Louisville Metro Police Department for allegedly withholding bodycam footage taken during the night of her death.
Breonna was 26 when she was fatally shot by police officers in her Louisville, Kentucky, home during a botched raid in March 2020.
Her death not only sparked protests across the US, but also saw Louisville pass Breonna’s Law which enforces a ban on no-knock warrants.
On Wednesday, July 7, an attorney representing her family has filed a lawsuit claiming that the police department could have provided members of the public with "misinformation" about the existence of bodycam footage taken during the horrific ordeal, per CNN.
On March 13, 2020, Breonna was at home in bed with her boyfriend Kenneth Walker when officers from Louisville Metro Police Department entered the apartment shortly after midnight.
Per The Independent, Taylor was shot at least five times in a mistaken drugs raid in the city of Louisville.
Prior to the raid, the judge had reportedly signed a "no-knock" warrant that gave officers permission to enter.
However, the warrant's order was later changed to a "knock and announce" - but Walker has since stated that the officers did not announce themselves - despite the couple asking who was outside the front door after hearing banging.
Walker has stated that he believed Taylor's ex-boyfriend was attempting to break in, causing him to fire a gun at the officers when they broke down the door - striking Officer Mattingly in the leg.
The officers then returned fire, striking Taylor five times. The Jefferson County coroner reported that Breonna Taylor died within a minute after she was shot.
Now, her family is demanding justice as they filed the lawsuit this week in Jefferson County Circuit Court, reports NBC News.
This lawsuit alleges that officers are withholding public records that would otherwise show whether or not there is additional body camera footage. The family says this could provide them with more information on the events that unfolded that night.
Previously, Louisville Metro police officers have denied the existence of such footage, claiming that officers had either not been wearing bodycams or had switched them off.
However, per the lawsuit - obtained by ABC News - several police officers involved in the fatal raid had Axon body cameras complete with upgraded systems built to signal nearby cameras to automatically record whenever a police vehicle’s light bar was activated.
The lawsuit claims that "most of the vehicles" that night had light bars activated, including ‘at least one of the responding LMPD members' involved in the raid, Washington Post reports.
Furthermore, "dozens of other LMPD members" who responded to the scene came with police vehicles that had light bars that had been activated at some point.
The lawsuit states:
"Simply put, it would have been difficult for most of the LMPD members with body cameras… to not have had their Axon body cameras activated at one point or another.
"Even those who may have left cameras in vehicles or other locations should have been activated to an event mode from a buffering mode, so long as the camera was within range of Signal unit."
