Over the weekend, Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers PLLC, the firm representing the family of Breonna Taylor, filed an amended complaint with the Jefferson Circuit Court claiming that land ownership and the gentrification played an essential role in the chain of events that led to police officers killing the 26-year-old African American woman in her own home, located on Elliott Avenue in west Louisville, Kentucky, last spring.
“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.,” according to the complaint. As a result, 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.”
“Over the past several years, the Louisville mayor has widely publicized the investments made under his administration to develop west Louisville. The large-scale projects have primarily failed… Simply put, the Louisville mayor’s promise to leave an economic legacy in west Louisville before his term expires remains largely unfulfilled. One of the last chances to leave a visible legacy in west Louisville is a high investment, high dollar real estate development plan for Elliott Avenue,” the complaint continues. “Renderings of the project also demonstrate the need for current homes on Elliott to be demolished.”
Taylor was killed after the execution of a no-knock warrant with dubious merits. Her death has catalyzed worldwide outrage and protests in the past month.
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