Breonna Taylor’s Family Awarded $12 Million in Wrongful-Death Suit

The family of Breonna Taylor, the EMT worker who was shot and killed by police officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove on March 13, 2020, was a awarded a $12 million in a wrongful death suit settlement by the City of Louisville, Kentucky.

Breonna Taylor, here in December, would have turned 27 on Friday. Her friends and family remember Taylor as a caring person who loved her job in health care and enjoyed playing cards with her aunts.

According to The New York Times, “After months of protests that turned Breonna Taylor’s name into a national slogan against police violence, city officials agreed to pay her family $12 million and institute reforms aimed at preventing future deaths by officers. The settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the mother of Ms. Taylor, a young Black woman who was killed by white police officers in a botched raid last March, was announced Tuesday by her legal team and city officials. As protesters drummed outside City Hall, Ms. Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, was joined by other relatives and advocates wearing black masks inscribed with Ms. Taylor’s name in white lettering. Her family’s lawyer Ben Crump said the settlement ensured that Ms. Taylor’s ‘life wouldn’t be swept under the rug like so many other Black women in America who have been killed by police, marginalized.'”

The officers have yet to be charged.