Breonna Taylor (Photo: Instagram)

The family of an aspiring Kentucky nurse working as an EMT who was fatally shot by police in her home has filed a lawsuit against the City of Louisville’s police department and the attorney for her family says she was killed in a “botched police raid.”

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician (EMT) who had been on the frontlines battling the coronavirus, was shot eight times and killed shortly after midnight on March 13 by Louisville Metro Police Department officers executing a drug warrant.

Taylor’s family has filed a civil lawsuit that alleges police were actually looking for a man who lived in Taylor’s building but not her apartment, who had been apprehended before officers allegedly entered Taylor’s apartment unannounced.

“There are witnesses who are her neighbors … nobody heard the police announcing themselves,” said Ben Crump, the attorney now representing Taylor’s family, on Tuesday.  “This was a botched execution of a search warrant where they already had the person they were searching for in custody.”

Crump also represented the Trayvon Martin family during the high-profile, stand-your-ground case in Florida several years ago, and is representing the family of Ahmaud Arbery, the black Georgia jogger who was killed on Feb. 23.

The family’s lawsuit, which was filed on April 27, states that Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep in their bedroom when police in plainclothes and unmarked vehicles arrived at the house looking for a suspect who lived in a different part of the city and was already in police custody. The three officers entered Taylor’s home “without knocking and without announcing themselves as police officers,” the suit states.

The lawsuit says Taylor and Walker woke up and thought criminals were breaking in. Walker called 911 and police said he opened fire and shot an officer. The suit alleges officers responded by firing more than 20 bullets into the apartment.