Breonna Taylor’s Family To Receive 'Unprecedented' $12 Million Settlement

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor, to settle a wrongful death lawsuit, multiple outlets report.

The news comes after six months of protests and international outrage over the death of the 26-year-old EMT, who was killed after police officers broke down the door to her apartment and fatally shot her while executing a "no-knock" warrant on March 13. Since the incident, Louisville has instituted a dozen reforms aimed at preventing future deaths by police.

At the press conference where the settlement was formally announced, Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, acknowledged the settlement, which includes includes “significant” police reforms, but asked that the officers involved in the shooting be arrested. “Her beautiful spirit and personality is working through all of us on the ground, so please continue to say her name: Breonna Taylor,” Palmer said on Tuesday (September 15). "It is time to move forward with the criminal charges because she deserves that and much more."

As noted by the New York Times, Louisville's settlement with the Taylor family came "relatively quick compared to other cases of police shootings, which have often dragged through court, taking years." The settlement is also more than "double the amount paid to the relatives of Eric Garner," who died in a police chokehold in 2014.

“Based on at least 20 years of tracking these types of cases, I’ve never seen something like this,” Christopher 2x, a community organizer who was the first person Ms. Taylor’s family turned to after her death, told NYT of the recent settlement and the dozen of police reforms in the wake of Taylor's death. “The bottom line is the monetary amount, combined with the reforms, is unprecedented for us. In the past, it was monetary or nothing, and usually the city would fight you for years.”

Last week, a grand jury was empaneled to investigate the fatal shooting. The grand jury will ultimately decide the fate of the three officers — Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove — who opened fire during the incident.

While an announcement has yet to be made about those proceedings, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron is expected to announce a charging decision soon.

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