The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, notably announced that the police officer acquitted by a jury in March was also prosecuted “for excessive use of force”.
Le Monde
The US Minister of Justice announced, on Thursday, August 4, federal prosecution against four police officers involved in the death of the African-American Breonna Taylor, shot down in his apartment in Louisville (Kentucky) in 2020 and become an icon of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Local justice had only continued one of the agents involved in the drama, not for the death of the young woman but for having “endangered” her neighbor by unloading her weapon through a partition . The latter’s acquittal, in March, was perceived as a denial of justice by anti -racist activists.
Federal justice, which conducted his investigation in parallel, finally decided to continue him “for excessive use of force,” announced the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, at a press conference. She also charged three of her former colleagues for lies about the search warrant at the origin of the drama. “The accused knew that the mandate contained false and misleading information and that others had been omitted,” explained Mr. Garland at a press conference.
They “knew that it could create a dangerous situation and we argue that these illegal acts resulted in the death of M lle Taylor,” he added. The three agents, who had not taken part in the raid, had then “taken measures to cover their misdeeds” and in particular lied to the federal agents of the FBI, according to Mr. Garland.
Breonna Taylor received Twenty balls
On March 13, 2020, three police officers in Louisville had burst in the middle of the night at Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old nursing assistant, as part of an investigation for drug trafficking targeting his former little friend. His new companion, Kenneth Walker, believed that they were burglars and had shot with a legally detained weapon. The police had retaliated and Breonna Taylor had received around twenty balls.
The agents were equipped with a mandate called “No Knock”, authorizing them to break the door without warning. They ensure that they still announced, which Mr. Walker disputes. The death of Breonna Taylor had not attracted a lot of attention at first, but she returned to the front of the stage a few months later as part of the major anti-racist demonstrations that agitated the United States after the death of George Floyd, a black forty-something black muffled by a white police officer in Minneapolis, May 25, 2020.
To put an end to a civilian complaint, the town hall of Louisville agreed to pay $ 12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor and to initiate first reforms of his police. Its police are also the subject of an investigation by the federal government on their practices.