March 15, 2022
‘Do The Right Thing’: Breonna Taylor’s Mother Urges DOJ To Nail All Three Officers With Federal Charges
Following the second anniversary of Breonna Taylor‘s death by police, her mother met with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division officials. On Monday, she urged for further investigation and federal charges to be brought against the officers involved in the fatal shooting of her daughter during a botched police raid in 2020, CNN reported.
“I’m here at the Department of Justice asking them to do the right thing,” said Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, at a news conference after the meeting. “This is bigger than Breonna. If no one addresses this issue, they’ll keep kicking in our doors and murdering us.”
On March 13, 2020, Taylor, a 26-year-old unarmed Black woman and EMT worker, was wrongfully killed in her home by a hail of bullets by plainclothes officers Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove, and Jonathan Mattingly.
They were serving a “no-knock” search warrant for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend for allegedly dealing drugs.
“For the nation, it’s been two years and one day. For me, I’m trapped in March the 13th, 2020,” Palmer said.
“I don’t know how people think I should just move on, that I should just walk away from this thing. Half my life has been spent being Breonna’s mother. It’s the only thing I’ve learned to do well in my life. It’s the thing that I’ll die for – fighting to make sure she gets justice.”
Hankison was acquitted of wanton endangerment charges and fired from the Louisville Police Department in 2020. The other two officers were not charged, but Cosgrove was terminated in January 2021, and Mattingly retired in April 2021.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump told CNN that himself, Palmer, and Kristen Clarke, the top official of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, met for about 45 minutes Monday morning to discuss demands for an investigation into all three officers.
“They said, ‘Be not dismayed,'” Crump said, recalling the meeting.
“They’re turning over every stone, looking at any civil rights charges on behalf of Breonna Taylor, because they would do the same for any citizen. Because Breonna Taylor deserves it.”