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A new lawsuit filed by the family of Breonna Taylor claims that the Louisville Metro Police Department withheld records that could show there are body camera footage from the fatal March 2020 raid, dispelling “misinformation “presented to the public.
In the lawsuit filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court on Wednesday, attorney Sam Aguiar is asking a judge to order the department to release information about the body cameras under the Kentucky Open Records Act.
Police officials and State Attorney General Daniel Cameron previously said there was no body camera footage that captured the aid that resulted in Taylor’s death on March 13, 2020. Authorities have said released body camera footage of officers responding to the scene after the shooting.
LMPD officials argued that officers were not required to wear body cameras during the operation and that those involved were not wearing their cameras or activating them manually. But the lawsuit argues that there is a second way to activate the department’s Axon-branded cameras.
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“Complainants and the public have a hardline right to know whether undisclosed body camera images exist, or have ever existed, of LMPD Axon Cameras that relate to the events surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor,” the lawsuit says, according to a report. copy of document obtained by Washington Post and viewed by Fox News.
Aguiar claims that the Axon Flex 2 camera can automatically switch from buffering mode to “event mode” under certain circumstances, such as exposure to light bars of police vehicles within signal range. The lawyer claims dozens of marked and infiltrated LMPD vehicles were at the scene the night Taylor was killed and had their lights on at one point or another.
“Assuming the body cameras were docked after Breonna’s murder, and that there was no tampering with the devices or associated storage prior to docking, audit trails should help verify if Metro has been truthful to the public regarding the existence of footage, “the lawsuit said.
Aguiar claims that it would have been difficult for most of the officers involved in the criminal investigation in Taylor’s apartment not to have activated their Axon cameras at one point or another – and even the cameras left in the vehicles would have must have activated when within range of a signal.
“Given that Metro was able to verify that the body cameras of some members of the LMPD were specifically assigned on March 13, 2020, there is a reasonable basis to believe that disinformation has been presented to the general public regarding the use of cameras. bodily injuries by several members of the LMPD CID unit, ”the trial said.
No one has been charged directly in connection with Taylor’s death.
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Three officers involved in the drug operation that killed Taylor are no longer employed by the police department. Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove were both made redundant and Jonathan Mattingly retired last month. Hankison was charged last September with three counts of endangerment without cause for allegedly shooting at a nearby apartment on the night of the raid.
The city of Louisville agreed to pay Taylor’s family $ 12 million last September to settle their wrongful death lawsuit. The agreement also called for the implementation of changes to the police department in an effort to prevent future deaths in a police raid.
A police spokeswoman declined to comment on Fox News amid the ongoing litigation.
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