Louisville settles wrongful death lawsuit with Breonna Taylor's family for $12 million, which is double the amount that Cleveland settled the wrongful death lawsuit with the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Taylor gunned down by Louisville police and Rice gunned down by police in Cleveland, Ohio....The Taylor settlement also provides for police reforms....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leaders

 

The late Breonna Taylor

Oprah Winfrey and the late Breonna Taylor

One of the 26 billboards erected in Breonna Taylor's hometown of Louisville, Kentucky and financed by media mogul and billionaire Oprah Winfrey

Louisville Metro police officers Sgt Jonathan Mattingly, detective Brett Hankison and  Myles Cosgrove, Hankison fired by  Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert J. Schroeder in connection with the March shooting death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky-The city of Louisville has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the family of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, whom police gunned down in March, for $12 million, the largest excessive force settlement of its kind in Louisville's history and an even greater settlement than the $6 million handed to the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by the city of Cleveland in 2016.

Rice was gunned down by a White Cleveland cop in November of 2014 at a park and recreation center on Cleveland's largely White west side.

Taylor's family members said no amount of money can compensate them for their loss and pushed for police reforms in Louisville, and elsewhere.

"I don't know that you can put a dollar amount on her life, she was so much more than that" said Taylor's mother, Tanika Palmer.

The city did not admit any wrongdoing.

The family's lead attorney, famed Black lawyer Benjamin Crump, said the settlement is coupled with police reforms, though not enough to protect Black people from over anxious cops in the Derby City.

Those reforms include changes to the approval process for search warrants, mental health calls by social workers, and incentives for police officers to live and volunteer in the community.

A Democrat, Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher said his administration is eager to implement police reforms in the wake of the Breonna Taylor tragedy.

"My administration is not waiting to move ahead with reforms to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again," said Mayor Fischer.

The union for the police officers called the settlement premature and said it is standing behind the officers at issue.

Media mogul and billionaire Oprah Winfrey is among a growing number of prominent Blacks who are demanding that the Louisville Metro cops involved in the shooting death of Taylor be indicted on criminal charges, only one of the police officers, detective Brett Hankinson, terminated behind the tragic killing of the young Black woman, and none of them charged criminally.

The other two officers who were with Hankison when he gunned down Taylor at her home this year, Sgt, Jonathan Mattingly and officer Myles Cosgrove, remain on administrative leave with pay.

The case is expected to go before a grand jury momentarily as to whether any of the involved officers will be charged.

Oprah is financing 26 billboards across the city of Louisville calling for the indictments, a billboard for each of the 26-years Taylor was alive before she was erroneously gunned down.

Lat month Winfrey stepped off the cover of  O, The Oprah Magazine, for the first time in 20 years to feature Taylor on the cover of the latest issue, her picture an edited image that Taylor had of herself before she was killed.

All three cops at issue are White, which has heightened racial tensions in the Louisville community, the city only 23 percent Black, and Jefferson County, which includes Louisville, just 19 percent Black.

The state of Kentucky, with Louisville its largest city in front of Lexington, has a Black population of a mere eight percent.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert J. Schroeder fired Hankison, saying he violated departmental rules and procedures, and deadly force standards in shooting and killing Taylor.

"When Hankison and two other plainclothes officers used a no-knock warrant to enter Taylor’s apartment March 13, he wantonly and blindly fired 10 rounds," said  Chief Schroeder in firing Hankison.

Then a 26-year- old emergency room technician, police shot and killed Taylor on March 13 in her Louisville apartment after three cops barged in via a no-knock narcotics warrant, the city later outlawing no-knock warrants behind the Taylor tragedy.

Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a gun off when police entered the apartment unannounced, and Taylor, in turn, was shot and killed by police.

She was shot eight times.

Police claim her residence was suspected of drug activity and that a car registered to her was allegedly seen parked at a nearby residence under police surveillance for alleged drug dealing activity by an ex- acquaintance.

No drugs were found.

The city has since outlawed no knock warrants and lawyers for the cops who shot her say their clients should not be charged and prosecuted because they entered her apartment via a no knock warrant and that they only fired after Taylor's boyfriend fired at them, the Taylor family attorneys saying the shooting was reckless, and criminal minded.

Taylor's shooting death by police drew protests in Louisville, including during the Kentucky Derby in early September and behind the police killing on May 25 of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the rally for Taylor also culminating in calls for systemic changes in policing.

Seven people got shot in the crowd during one of Louisville's protest for justice for Breonna, one critically.

Floyd's killing, like that of Breonna, an erroneous police killings of so many innocent Black people nationwide, has heightened racial unrest across the country.

A 46-year-old Black man, Floyd died when since fired Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin, who is White, the arresting officer, held his knee on his neck until he killed him, and before a crowd of people as the Black man pleaded for his life and cried out that he could not breathe.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.