The mother of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency room technician who was killed in 2020 by Louisville police executing a "no-knock" warrant, said it took 10 hours for her to find out about the fatal shooting after she waited in vain for her daughter at the hospital.
In an interview that aired Wednesday on Red Table Talk, Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, said she initially went to her daughter's apartment, but officers told her to go to the hospital.
"I'm [at the hospital] for almost two hours and so then [the hospital worker] finally comes back and says, 'There's not even a record of this person being on the way,'" Tamika said.
Tamika said she left the hospital because she knew something was wrong. When she arrived back at the apartment complex, she said, police officers wouldn't let her in. A detective finally told her that Taylor was still in the apartment.
"I knew what that meant," Tamika said. "He never said it, but I knew."
It wasn't until 10 hours after she began looking that Tamika found out Taylor was dead.
On March 13, 2020, seven police officers forced their way into Taylor's apartment in Louisville as part of a narcotics raid. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said the officers didn't announce themselves, causing him to fire a warning shot in self-defense. The seven officers then fired 32 shots in return. Taylor was hit multiple times.
Tamika, Walker, and Taylor's sister, Ju'Niyah Palmer, sat down for an episode of Red Table Talk, a Facebook series starring Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris. Walker, who was arrested that night and spent a year in jail on charges of assault and attempted murder of a police officer, which were later dropped, described the deadly raid and how it's affected his life.
"Before all this, I would have never thought I would go see a therapist," Walker said. "I ran out of options. I didn't know what else to do. I was hurting all day, every day. I cried a lot. I still cry to this day. But I definitely had to start seeing a therapist."
He's since moved into a place on his own for the first time and sleeps with a gun by his bed.
"I'm definitely paranoid," he said. "Nobody knows where I live. I'm real fearful of a lot of things."
Ju'Niyah said she still goes to Taylor's old apartment and sits in the parking lot.
"It just gives a sense of relief sometimes," she said.
In 2020, Louisville city officials announced a $12 million settlement with Taylor's family and an agreement to several policy reforms. Four current and former Louisville police officers have also been charged with federal crimes in Taylor's killing.