A new report has revealed Breonna Taylor was alive for at least five minutes after she was shot multiple times by police in her Louisville apartment.
According to the Courier Journal, after Louisville officers fired more than 20 bullets into her apartment, Breonna was alive and coughing as she struggled to breathe, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker told investigators.
Kenneth said Beonna called out for her mom and yelled for help. “(Police are) yelling like, ‘Come out, come out,’ and I’m on the phone with her (mom). I’m still yelling help because she’s over here coughing and, like, I’m just freaking out,” Walker said in a recorded police interview three hours after the shooting.
The Jefferson County coroner disputes that account, but records show that no effort to save Breonna was made. For more than 20 minutes after Breonna was fatally shot, she lay where she fell in her hallway, receiving no medical attention, according to dispatch logs.
“Breonna, who was unarmed in her hallway, was struck by several rounds of gunfire. She was not killed immediately,” attorneys Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker wrote in a revised lawsuit filed on behalf of her family. “Rather, she lived for another five to six minutes before ultimately succumbing to her injuries on the floor of her home.”
Outside, officers shouted for Walker to exit and rushed to treat Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, putting a tourniquet on his thigh after Walker had shot him in self defense as he believed armed intruders had broken into his home. The officers, who were in plain clothes, used a battering ram to force their way into Breonna’s home while executing a controversial no-knock warrant as part of a larger narcotics investigation.
While officers were focused on getting Mattingly to the hospital, records show no one went inside to help Breonna.
“This is a tragedy all around,” said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, who will be the subject of an investigation for his administration’s handling of Breonna’s death.
The three officers involved in her shooting have yet to see any charges as activists and people across social media continue to call for justice in Breonna Taylor’s name. We’ll keep you posted on any updates.
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