The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that four police officers have been charged with the 2020 shooting death of African-American Breonna Taylor in her Louisville apartment, which has since become a symbol of the movement.
The incumbent Justice Department Attorney General Merrick Garland said the agents were charged with civil rights crimes, abuse of power and obstruction.
State justice had accused one of the agents not only of the death of the young woman, but of “endangering” her neighbor by shooting at the wall.
That police officer, Brett Hankison, was acquitted in March, angering anti-racist activists.
On the other hand, the federal court, which conducted a parallel investigation, accused Garland of “use of excessive force”.
He also accuses three of his former colleagues of lying about the search and seizure warrant that triggered the tragedy.
“The defendants knew that the affidavit supporting this order contained false and misleading information, and they knew that another omission had been omitted. [informação] important,” Garland explained.
“They knew it could create a dangerous situation, and we argue that these illegal actions led to Taylor’s death,” he added.
According to the attorney general, the three agents unrelated to the raid “took steps to cover up their unlawful behavior” and lied to the FBI.
On March 13, 2020, three Louisville police officers raided the home of 26-year-old babysitter Breonna Taylor in the middle of the night as part of a drug dealing investigation against her ex-boyfriend.
His partner at the time, Kenneth Walker, who was not the target of the raid, believed the agents to be the thief and shot him with a weapon in his legal possession.
The police intervened and Breonna Taylor was shot nearly 20 times.
There was a search warrant called “no click” that allowed the agents to break the door without any warning. Even so, they claim to have made their presence known, which Walker denied.
Breonna Taylor’s death didn’t attract much attention at first, but her case caught attention during the massive demonstrations against racism that shook the United States after 40-year-old black George Floyd was strangled to death by a white police officer. in Minneapolis in May 2020.
In September 2020, protests broke out in Kentucky’s largest city, Louisville, and prosecutors brought no charges against the other officers involved in the tragedy, and only upheld one charge against Hankison.
source: Noticias
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