Breonna Taylor's Family Filed A Lawsuit About Missing Body Camera Info

Over a year after her death, Breonna Taylor’s family is still fighting for justice!

Source: Jon Cherry / Getty

Breonna Taylor’s family filed a lawsuit against Louisville Metro Police Department on Wednesday for lying to the public and withholding information about the use of body cameras on the night police shot and killed the 26-year-old EMT. Louisville Metro police claimed there is no footage from officer body cameras when they attempted to issue a no-knock search warrant on March 13, 2020. The department previously stated the plainclothes officers involved, former officer Brett Hankison, Detective Myles Cosgrove and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, conveniently either did not have their body cameras turned on or with them at all when they fired 32 shots into Taylor’s apartment shortly after midnight. The only body camera footage acknowledged or released by LMPD is from responding officers arriving at the chaotic aftermath of the shooting.

However, Sam Aguiar, an attorney for Taylor’s family, states that all the officers involved in executing that warrant were issued body cameras before the raid took place. Cosgrove was also captured on video after the shooting wearing a body camera holster.  When an officer turns on the flashing light bar on their car, like Cosgrove and many other officers did before arriving at Taylor’s apartment, those particular body cameras automatically activate to start recording.

“Simply put, it would have been difficult for most of the LMPD members with body cameras and who were associated with … events at Breonna’s … to not have had their Axon body cameras activated at one point or another,” the complaint said according to NBC News.

“There is a reasonable basis to believe that misinformation has been presented to the general public regarding the usage of body cameras by several members of the LMPD. The plaintiffs, and the public, have an uncompromised right to know whether undisclosed body camera footage exists, or otherwise previously existed, from LMPD Axon Cameras which relates to the events surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor.”

Another LMPD officer Joshua Jaynes was already fired earlier this year for lying about how he gathered evidence about Taylor to obtain the deadly no-knock search warrant for a narcotics investigation of her ex-boyfriend, who was already in their custody. No narcotics were recovered from a search of Taylor’s apartment. Thanks to chronically ashy Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, of the other officers responsible for Taylor’s death, only Cosgrove was charged with “wanton endangerment” as a slap on the wrist for the bullets that entered other units in her apartment complex.

Breonna’s family received a settlement for their wrongful death lawsuit against Louisville in September 2020, but they are still demanding the truth. In October of 2020, the police department released the file from their internal investigation into the shooting. However, Aguiar never received the information requested about body cameras from LMPD. The suit requests a judge to compel the police department to release the information under Kentucky’s Open Records Act.

From the bogus search warrant to the attempted cover-up with the nearly blank incident report, Louisville Metro Police Department has proven themselves as dangerous as they are incompetent and untrustworthy.

Breonna’s family deserves the truth and we all deserve better than this pathetic excuse for law and order.