- A Change.org petition demanding accountability for the death of Breonna Taylor has surpassed 10 million signatures as of Sunday, making it the second-most signed petition in the site’s history.
- Taylor, a Black Louisville, Kentucky-based EMT, was killed in her sleep on March 13 at the age of 26 when three Louisville police officers executed a no-knock raid on her apartment.
- Taylor’s death and the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd at the hands of police spurred historic demonstrations against police brutality. The most signed-petition on Change.org calls for justice for Floyd.
- The petition calls for all officers involved in Taylor’s death to be fired and criminally charged, for Taylor’s family to receive damages, and for a special prosecutor to investigate the Louisville Police Department.
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A Change.org petition demanding accountability for the death of Breonna Taylor has surpassed 10 million signatures as of Sunday, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported, making it the second-most signed petition in the site’s history.
Taylor’s death and the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd sparked historic protests against police brutality and racism in the United States throughout May and June. The most signed petition on Change.org with 19 million signatures calls for justice for Floyd, who died on May 25 when a police officer pinned his knee on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes. All four officers involved in Floyd’s death have been fired and criminally charged.
Taylor, an African-American Louisville, Kentucky-based EMT, was killed in her sleep on March 13 at the age of 26 when three Louisville police officers executed a no-knock raid on her apartment in search of a criminal suspect who, as it turned out, had already been arrested. The New York Times reported that police had a warrant to search her apartment as part of a drug investigation.
Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker, believing the apartment was being broken into, grabbed his gun and responded to the raid by shooting at the officers entering Taylor’s apartment. In response, they fired shots that struck both Walker and fatally injured Taylor.
Police records show that Taylor was not killed instantly, but was alive for some time after being shot and did not receive any medical attention for 20 minutes after the fact, the Courier-Journal recently reported Friday.
One of the officers directly involved, officer Brett Hankinson, has been fired and the other two, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and officer Myles Cosgrove are on administrative leave pending investigations by the Kentucky attorney general’s office and the FBI. None of the officers face criminal charges.
The petition calls for all the officers involved in Taylor’s death to be fired, arrested, and criminally charged for her death, for Taylor’s family to receive financial damages from the department for wrongful death and negligence, for Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to appoint an outside special prosecutor to investigate the Louisville Police Department, and for so-called no-knock warrants to be banned by Congress.
“For weeks, the city treated Breonna like she was a criminal, calling her a “suspect” before finally admitting that she was an innocent, crimeless victim,” the petition’s creator Loralei HoJay wrote. “She had no drugs. She committed no crime. Yet, she is dead, and the perpetrators are facing no charges.”
