Records show Breonna Taylor didn't receive medical attention for more than 20 minutes after police shooting


Breonna Taylor's boyfriend told investigators she was alive for at least five minutes after being shot by police, and records show she did not receive medical attention during this time, according to a new report.
Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot by police in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, in March while she was inside with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker; police were executing a no-knock warrant in a narcotics investigation. Now, a detailed new report from the Courier-Journal uses a wide variety of records, including search warrants, arrest citations, and a complaint filed by Taylor's family, to reconstruct the minutes after the shooting.
"For more than 20 minutes after she was fatally shot at approximately 12:43 a.m. by Louisville officers, Taylor, 26, lay where she fell in her hallway, receiving no medical attention," the report says, citing dispatch logs.
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According to the report, records show that police "didn't radio in to dispatch about Taylor being inside the apartment until 1:10 a.m. — nearly a half-hour after she was shot by police." Walker reportedly told investigators in an interview hours after the shooting that Taylor was alive and coughing for at least five minutes after being shot, and an attorney for Taylor's family previously told The New York Times that "we have no evidence suggesting that any officer made entry in an attempt to check and assist her" in the minutes before she died.
As the report notes, Taylor's death certificate lists her time of death as "approx. 0048." But Jefferson County Coroner Barbara Weakley-Jones tells the Times that this was an "estimate" and "a flip of the coin," saying she likely died in "less than a minute." According the Times, state officials say that "only after [Walker] was in handcuffs could they go back in" and that they "didn't even know that Ms. Taylor was wounded until later." Read more at the Courier-Journal.
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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