Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old emergency-room medical technician. Her death on March 13, 2020 at the hands of Louisville, Kentucky police officers became a marquee case for the Black Lives Matter movement. One of the most celebrated figures in American life, Oprah Winfrey, took up Breonna’s cause and bought 26 giant billboards – each one representing a year of her short life. The billboards featured Taylor’s image and the words: “Demand that the police involved in killing Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged.”[1] A website called UntilFreedom.com, describing itself as “an intersectional social justice organization rooted in the leadership of diverse people of color to address systemic and racial injustice,” joined Oprah in carrying out the initiative.[2]

 

In addition to the billboards, Oprah put Taylor’s photo on the cover of her best-selling monthly magazine “O,” which had featured Oprah herself on the cover of every issue since its inception twenty years before.[3] For this special issue, Oprah wrote a moving editorial tribute to Breonna’s life, which contained this account of the incident that ended her life: “We know how Breonna died. March 13. Louisville police storming into her apartment in the middle of the night. No uniforms. No ‘This is the police!’ Terrifying Breonna and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.”[4]

Well, not exactly. Along with other sources available, the CNN account to which Oprah provided a link, tells a more complicated story.[5] The raid on Taylor’s apartment was one of five taking place that night, all of them included as suspected distribution centers for a crack cocaine dealer named Jamarcus Glover.[6] Glover had been Taylor’s boyfriend two years previously, and she had kept in touch with him. According to The New York Times, after they first became a couple in 2016, Taylor agreed to rent a car for Glover and ended up interviewed in a murder investigation. A man was found shot to death behind the steering wheel of that car, and drugs were also found.[7] Yet Taylor kept up her close relationship with the drug dealer and continued to provide valued services to his drug operation.

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Either roused by the officers’ announcement or by the sound of the breaking door, Taylor and Walker got out of bed and went to the entrance hall. Walker was carrying a weapon that was legally registered.[20] He fired at the intruders in the darkness, hitting Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg.[21] This triggered a hail of bullets from the officers, six of which hit Taylor, and killed her.[22] Contrary to the Black Lives Matter accusations, social media posts and media reports claiming that Taylor had been shot “in her sleep,” she actually died on the floor of her hallway where she followed her new boyfriend Kenneth Walker.[23]