"Who Is It?" Cops Ignored Breonna Taylor before Maliciously Shooting Her Based on an Unlawful Warrant. Complaint Says “Lingering" Residents were Targeted for Removal by City in a Gentrification Push

From [HERE] and [HERE] Breonna Taylor's shooting was the result of a Louisville police department operation to clear out a block in western Louisville that was part of a major gentrification makeover, according to attorneys representing the slain 26-year-old's family.

Lawyers for Taylor's family allege in court documents filed in Jefferson Circuit Court Sunday that a police squad — named Place-Based Investigations — had "deliberately misled" narcotics detectives to target a home on Elliott Avenue, leading them to believe they were after some of the city's largest violent crime and drug rings.

The complaint — which amends an earlier lawsuit filed by Taylor's mother against the three Louisville officers who fired their weapons into Taylor's home — claims Taylor was caught up in a case that was less about a drug house on Elliott Avenue and more about speeding up the city's multi-million dollar Vision Russell development plan. [MORE]

After Taylor’s death the City bought the house for $17k

The introduction of the complaint states:

Breonna’s home should never have had police there in the first place. When the layers are peeled back, the origin of Breonna’s home being raided by police starts with a political need to clear out a street for a large real estate development project and finishes with a newly formed, rogue police unit violating all levels of policy, protocol and policing standards. Breonna’s death was the culmination of radical political and police conduct. As the factual allegations set forth further herein will confirm, a police unit went on a crusade to target people and homes in a confined area of Elliott Avenue in west Louisville. People needed to be removed and homes needed to be vacated so that a high dollar, legacy-creating real estate development could move forward. One of the primary roadblocks to this unit and the real estate development project was an ex- boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, who rented a home on Elliott Avenue. The police unit’s efforts to clean house on Elliott became so outrageous, unlawful, corrupt and reckless that a bogus, no-knock search warrant was obtained for the home of Breonna Taylor, a woman with no criminal history, no drugs in her home, no targets in her home and whose home was more than 10 miles away from Elliott Ave. From there, the named Defendants made error after error, violated policy after policy and committed unlawful act after unlawful act, resulting in Breonna being taken from the Louisville community and from her family far too soon.”

The complaint states, afterwards cops falsified police reports to cover up “mistakes” in executing the warrant. It also states that the LMPD and the Mayor are refusing to release body camera footage.