Une policière américaine a plaidé mardi coupable d’avoir four of fausses informations en vue d’obter un mandat de perquisition – dont l’exécution avait conduit à la mort de Breonna Taylor, tuée par un policier – et d’avoir ensuite menti pour se cover. The agent, Kelly Goodlett, is among the four police officers charged in early August by the US Department of Justice for her role in the death of this young black woman who became an icon of the Black Lives Matter movement. .
Two other officers, Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany, are accused along with Kelly Goodlett of having lied about the search warrant, while a third, Brett Hankison, was charged with excessive use of force.
Kelly Goodlett, who has since resigned, thus admits to having “falsified” the request for a search warrant addressed to a judge with another police officer, and then lying “to cover up the initial false statements”. She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
A controversial mandate
On March 13, 2020, three police officers in Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, broke into the home of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in the middle of the night as part of a drug trafficking investigation targeting her ex-boyfriend. Her new partner, Kenneth Walker, thought they were robbers and fired with a legally owned gun. Police responded and Breonna Taylor took around 20 bullets.
The officers were armed with a court order that read “without touching“, authorizing them to break down the door without warning. They claim to have announced themselves anyway, which Mr. Walker denies.
A very sensitive file in Louisville
The death of Breonna Taylor had not attracted much attention until the death of the African-American George Floyd, asphyxiated by a white police officer in May 2020. The name of the young woman had been chanted then in all the anti-racist protests of the summer. To settle a civil suit, the mayor of Louisville had agreed to pay Breonna Taylor’s family $12 million and initiate initial police reforms from him.
Despite the anger, local prosecutors, in September 2020, only charged Brett Hankison, not with Breonna Taylor’s death but with having “endangered” his neighbor by discharging his gun through a partition. Louisville was then on fire. His acquittal in March 2022 had revived the feeling of injustice.
Source: BFM TV
