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An attorney for Breonna Taylor’s family has filed a complaint against the Louisville Metro Police Department, alleging that several officers involved in the fatal raid had received body cameras and that the agency could have lied about the existence of footage .
Sam Aguiar says in the complaint that he did not receive the body camera information he requested from the police. He wants a judge to order the department to release him.
Taylor was shot and killed by police on March 13, 2020, after officers executed a restraining warrant on her apartment as part of a narcotics investigation. No drugs were found in the house, his family said in a previous lawsuit that had been settled with the city for $ 12 million.
Officers opened fire after Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker fired a single shot at the door, believing it to be an intruder. The murder of the 26-year-old has sparked nationwide protests.
According to police, three officers – Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove – were involved in Taylor’s death. Hankison was fired by the department in June 2020, police said, and has been charged with three counts of endangerment without cause for bullets that entered a nearby apartment. He has pleaded not guilty and a trial is scheduled for next year.
None of the officers involved have been charged with killing Taylor.
Earlier this year, the police department said it fired Cosgrove and another officer, Joshua Jaynes. A lawyer for Jaynes, who has been accused of lying about the warrant application for the raid, said his client would appeal to a city council looking into the police layoffs. Mattingly retired from the department last month.
The lawsuit says many Louisville officers “recorded their law enforcement activities on their body cameras.” He goes on to say that Cosgrove, Mattingly, Hankison and two other officers involved had body cameras assigned to them prior to the raid.
The officers are not named as defendants in the lawsuit. They could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Depending on the case, the cameras can be activated either manually or automatically when the light bars of a police vehicle are turned on. Many police vehicles at Taylor’s home on the night of the raid had their light bars on, including Cosgrove’s unmarked cruiser, according to the lawsuit.
“Put simply, it would have been difficult for most of the LMPD members equipped with body cameras and who were associated with … events at Breonna … not to have their Axon body cameras activated at one point or another,” says he does. .
The lawsuit says they believe “disinformation was presented to the general public regarding the use of body cameras” that night.
“Complainants and the public have an uncompromising right to know whether undisclosed body camera images exist, or have ever existed, of LMPD Axon Cameras that relate to the events surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor,” he said.
The lawsuit says Aguiar has asked police for information about the body camera and has yet to receive it. He asks that a judge order the department to release the information.
Police previously said the shooting was not filmed because some officers from the Criminal Interdiction Division, which executed the warrant, do not carry body cameras. Cosgrove was pictured wearing a body camera harness on the night of the raid, but said there was no device in it, according to the lawsuit.
In October, the police department released files from its internal investigation that contained videos of officers at the scene. Mattingly’s attorney also previously posted a 44-second video showing the moments after he was shot in the leg during the raid.
The Louisville Metro Police Department declined to comment on the lawsuit. “While we appreciate the opportunity, LMPD is not commenting on pending litigation,” a spokesperson said in a statement Friday.
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