The mother of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot by police in her apartment during a botched raid in Louisville, Kentucky, was “kicked out and escorted” from a courtroom during a related trial for an officer involved in the deadly incident.
Tamika Palmer was reportedly instructed to leave the court on 25 February during a criminal trial for former Louisville Metro Police Detective Brett Hankison after she showed up wearing a letterman jacket with a large “B” and an image of her daughter’s face.
The jacket also included the date of the raid, when three officers with a no-knock warrant entered Taylor’s apartment looking for two people suspected of selling drugs. Officers fired more than 20 rounds into the apartment.
According to an Instagram post from Taylor’s younger sister, Juniyah Palmer, a court official told her mother that her jacket wasn’t “going to work” and violated a courtroom dress code that “no one should wear any attire or display any object that is so inherently prejudicial that it would deprive the defendant of a fair trial”.
They were reportedly escorted from the courthouse.
Juniyah Palmer also said she was removed from the courtroom on Thursday for wearing a sweater with her sister’s image and the phrase “arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor”, which has emerged as a rallying cry at international racial justice protests and demonstrations against police violence galvanised in the wake of her death.
Hankison fired 10 shots near a side door during the raid, nearly two years ago, though none of his rounds hit Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman and medical worker. Prosecutors argue that his shots endangered her neighbours, including a couple and their child.
His is charged with three counts of wanton endangerment, punishable by up to five years in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
During the raid, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired one round from his legally owned handgun after officers used a battering ram to enter the apartment. He struck Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly in the thigh, hitting his femoral artery.
Officers returned fire. Myles Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Taylor, according to the FBI.
Hankinson was the only officer charged in the shooting; no one has been charged for Taylor’s death.
