Louisville reaches $12M settlement in Breonna Taylor wrongful death suit

Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The city of Louisville has reached a $12 million settlement with the family of Breonna Taylor, who was killed during a police raid last spring.

The settlement in the killing of the 26-year-old Taylor, who was shot when three plainclothes police officers served a "no-knock" search warrant for drugs at the Louisville apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, will include policing reforms but does not admit any wrongdoing on the part of the city or police, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

Lonita Baker, a lawyer for Taylor's family, said that "justice for Breonna is multi-layered" and that the contents of the settlement are "only a portion of a single layer."

Reforms included in the settlement include a requirement that police commanders approve all warrants before they go to a judge, mandatory written approval of SWAT matrices before search warrants are executed and an overhaul of the process for obtaining simultaneous search warrants.

Baker added the settlement includes reforms to "engage police officers within the community, not just when they're dispatched" including housing credits for officers to live in some low-income census tracts in Lousiville and encouraging officers to perform at least two paid hours of weekly community service in the communities they serve.

It also features an early action warning system to identify officers with red flags on their records and mandatory body camera counting from two officers of all currency seizures.

The settlement was also reported by NBC News and WAVE-TV.

On the night of Taylor's killing, Walker told investigators he reached for a handgun and opened fire because the officers didn't identify themselves. The officers returned fire, striking Taylor eight times. No drugs were found in the apartment.

Her death, and the death of George Floyd more than two months later, spurred national unrest and calls for the Louisville officers to be prosecuted.

Louisville police dismissed officer Brett Hankison, who fired into Taylor's apartment, in June. Critics, however, have demanded that all three officers face charges.

A grand jury is weighing potential criminal charges in the case.