We speak with Ben Crump, attorney for the family of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old aspiring nurse who was shot to death by police inside her own apartment. Her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department that details how police shot Taylor at least eight times after they burst into her apartment, unannounced, with a search warrant. The man police were looking for did not live in Taylor’s apartment and was reportedly already detained by police when officers arrived at Taylor’s residence on the night of March 13. At the time of her killing, Taylor had been working as an emergency medical technician treating COVID-19 patients.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Ben Crump, I wanted to end with another case. You’re also representing the family of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old aspiring nurse, who was shot to death by police inside her own apartment. Her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department, the lawsuit detailing how police shot Taylor at least eight times after they burst into her apartment, unannounced, with a search warrant. The man police were looking for did not live in Taylor’s apartment and was reportedly already detained by police when the officers arrived at Taylor’s residence on the night of March 13th. At the time of her killing, Breonna Taylor had been working as an emergency medical technician treating COVID-19 patients. Your final words?
BENJAMIN CRUMP: Yes. I agree with Senator Rand Paul that these dangerous no-knock warrants, I believe, are unconstitutional. But, as Senator Rand said, they should be abolished, because it is foreseeable that innocent, law-abiding citizens will be hurt or killed. And Breonna Taylor is exhibit number one.
And we cannot forget about Black women. As I have been proclaiming, if you ran with Maud in the Ahmaud Arbery case, then you need to stand for Bre, because Breonna Taylor’s life mattered. Black women’s lives matter, too. And this was just an execution of her in the sanctity of her own home.
And I look forward to coming back to talk with you more about developments in that case. The police chief resigned yesterday in the aftermath of this execution of this innocent Black woman. And we have to continue to demand that those police officers are arrested for the killing of this young lady, who her co-workers and family and everybody who knew her says she was just an angel of a person.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Benjamin Crump, we look forward to having you back. Ben Crump is a civil rights attorney representing the family of Ahmaud Arbery. He’s the author of Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People.
Up next, we go to India, which is starting to loosen its nationwide lockdown, the largest in world history. It just saw its biggest spike in coronavirus infections in a day with 6,000 new reported cases. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “The Long March of the Locked-Down Migrants,” a song by composer, lyric writer and singer Aadesh Ravi for the People’s Archive of Rural India.
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