THE LIFE BREONNA TAYLOR LIVED, IN THE WORDS OF HER MOTHER

In a series of interviews, author Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke to Tamika Palmer to paint a picture of a full, loving life taken too soon.

Vanity Fair
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Photography by LaToya Ruby Frazier

Breonna Taylor’s Mother, Tamika Palmer Draped In Bre’s EMT Jacket, Surrounded By Bre’s Cousin, Sister and Aunt, Jakiyah Austin, Juniyah Palmer, and Bianca Austin, Surrounded By Close Family Friends, Deon Ellis, Jenna Winn, and Tylan Livingston, in Front of a Mural Dedicated To Breonna by Artist Damon Thompson at 543 South Shelby Street, Louisville, Kentucky © LaToya Ruby Frazier

A BEAUTIFUL LIFE
by Ta-Nehisi Coates, photographs by LaToya Ruby Frazier

Shortly after midnight March 13, strangers shot and killed Breonna Taylor in her own home. The strangers claimed to be investigating a drug case. The strangers found no drugs in Breonna Taylor’s home. The strangers left their incident report almost totally blank.

Tamika Palmer is Breonna Taylor’s mother. What follows is her attempt to illuminate the life that was taken. To grapple with the nature of strangers. To fill in the blanks.

Kenny calls me in the middle of the night. He says, Somebody kicked in the door and shot Breonna. I am dead asleep. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I jump up. I get ready, and I rush over to her house. When I get there, the street’s just flooded with police—it’s a million of them. And there’s an officer at the end of the road, and I tell her who I am and that I need to get through there because something had happened to my daughter. She tells me I need to go to the hospital because there was two ambulances that came through, and the first took the officer and the second took whoever else was hurt. Of course I go down to the hospital, and I tell them why I am there. The lady looks up Breonna and doesn’t see her and says, Well, I don’t think she’s here yet. I wait for about almost two hours. The lady says, Well, ma’am, we don’t have any recollection of this person being on the way.

Bossy. She was bossy. Breonna was bossy. She was so OCD. And she was one of them people who didn’t talk about other people. If something was going on with you, she’d rather figure out a way to help you than talk about you. She was a hard worker. If she missed work, something was really wrong. She loved being in the hospital, she loved her job, and she loved the people she worked with. Clearly, they loved her. They would always be leaving her little notes about them loving her and loving to work with her. Even when she passed, some of them came to the funeral. We just can’t believe this, we love her so much. We’re just going to miss her.

– Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor

So I go back to the apartment. And I am able to get through the street a little more. And when I get up to the apartment, it’s still taped off and roped up around. So I tell the officer there that I need to get in the apartment, that something is going on with my daughter. He tells me to hang tight. He tells me hang tight, he’ll get a detective over there to talk to me. It takes a little while for him to come. He introduces himself. I don’t remember what his name actually is, but he kind of just goes on to ask me if I knew anybody who would want to hurt Breonna, or Kenny, or if I thought they were involved in anything. And I go, Absolutely not. Both of them got jobs. They go to work. They hang out with each other. That’s about it. I ask where Kenny is, and the detective tells me, Hold on. I’ll be back.

But it’s about another hour or so before he comes back. He asks me if Breonna and Kenny had been having any problems or anything. I say, Absolutely not. Kenny would never do anything to Breonna. And then I say, Where’s Kenny. I need to talk to Kenny. He says, Well, Kenny’s at one of our offices. He’s trying to help us piece together what happened here tonight. We are out there for a number of hours afterward. It’s kind of chilly. I leave. I get coffee and come back. I’m still standing out there waiting. It’s about 11 in the morning when the officer comes over and says that they are about done and they are wrapping up, and we will be able to get in there once they are finished. I say, Where’s Breonna, why won’t anybody say where Breonna is? He says, Well, ma’am, she’s still in the apartment. And I know what that means.

I’m from Michigan. I spent a lot of time in Detroit. But I grew up mostly in Grand Rapids. There was always stuff happening up there with the police. I was always hearing about them harassing black people or just always something. When I was about 13, I was outside one day with some friends. And the police just came up out of nowhere and started yelling. It was a gang of us, boys and girls, but they wasn’t talking to any of us, the girls. They were just kind of screaming at all the boys, Get on the ground! Get your stupid asses on the ground! And so we all were like, What are you doing! We didn’t even do anything! But there’d be stuff like that every day.

I remember being in the car, driving down a street, and being told if the police are behind us, don’t turn around and look at them. And if we did get pulled over, don’t say anything. Don’t move, because they’ll try and do something to us. I remember just kind of being told to stay away from the police, like you don’t want to have no problems with the police or give them a reason to want to have a problem with you. And I don’t really remember people ever calling the police. I remember people not wanting to call the police. I remember stuff happening and somebody would be like, Call the police, and people were like, Fuck the police. They not helping us. I just kind of steered clear of them. I tried not to be in trouble. I got the occasional speeding ticket or something. But for the most part, I never really had to deal with them a lot. I stayed out of their way. When I came to Louisville, it was the same thing.

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