Kentucky: A door busted open. A chaotic scene. A life taken. What the Breonna Taylor grand jury audio reveals

Kentucky: Breonna Taylor was in her bedroom with her boyfriend when the Louisville Metro Police Department officers, in plain clothes, arrived just after midnight. The officers, executing a narcotics warrant, knocked and announced themselves before using a battering ram to bash the door to Taylor’s South End apartment off its hinges that chaotic night. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, maintained that he did not know who was entering the Springfield Drive apartment and that he fired once.

Walker’s round hit one of the officers, Jonathan Mattingly, in the leg. The officers unleashed a 32-round hail of return fire that killed Taylor and set off months of unrest in Louisville and other United States cities. A Kentucky grand jury did not indict any of the three officers directly involved in the raid on charges connected with Taylor’s death. One officer faces charges for firing into an adjacent occupied apartment.

Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove were not charged. Brett Hankison was indicted on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree for allegedly firing blindly into Taylor’s apartment. Hankison has pleaded not guilty. Audio from the secret grand jury proceedings offers a glimpse into the confusion that reigned during the final moments of Taylor’s life.

Herman Hall, an investigator with the state attorney general’s office, knew of no official plan for the officers in the botched raid.

Mattingly told investigators that officers had a formal plan, with specific roles, for executing a number of search warrants that night. The juror asked if anyone had seen a formal plan that would back up Mattingly’s account. Hall told the panel the only plan he had seen was a whiteboard with addresses of locations to be raided and the names of officers involved in each.

Jurors can be heard murmuring that they had not seen the whiteboard. A photo of the board was shown to them. Hankison was not supposed to work that night. Hankison was not even part of the drug investigation. Hankison handles a narcotics detection dog. Hankison volunteered for the assignment. The dog was left in a patrol car during the start of the raid.

The officers at Taylor’s apartment that night were a hodgepodge of people thrown together and not connected to the drug investigation. The officers were briefed minimally on the location about two hours before the raid. It was considered a soft target and Taylor was not considered a threat. In the first moments of the raid, the officers announced themselves, their intent was not to hit the door.

The officers had a no-knock search warrant that would have allowed them to enter without announcing themselves as law enforcement.

The officers’ intent was to give Taylor plenty of time to come to get to the door. After banging on the door six or seven times, the decision was made to enter by force. A battering ram was used. It took three strikes to knock the door off its hinges. Walker never heard anyone say “police” and that his and Taylor’s shouts of “Who is it?” were met with silence.

Most neighbors were awakened by the gunfire and therefore did not hear what preceded it. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has said one witness told investigators the officers had announced themselves. As Walker and Taylor made their way down a hallway toward the front door, the door flew off its hinges so he let off one shot. Mattingly was the first to lean inside.

Colleagues dragged Mattingly, wounded and bleeding heavily from his thigh, out to a parking lot and used a belt as a tourniquet. Cosgrove fired 16 rounds that night. Cosgrove was one of three officers who fired their weapons. FBI ballistic tests determined a bullet from Cosgrove’s gun killed Taylor. Cameron said Mattingly’s and Cosgrove’s shots were justified because Walker fired at officers first.

Mattingly’s attorney Kent Wicker called Taylor’s death a tragedy, but the officers did not act in a reckless or unprofessional manner.

The officers did their duty, performed their roles as law enforcement officers and, above all, did not break the law. Hankison allegedly blindly fired 10 rounds into Taylor’s apartment through a covered patio door and window that prevented him from assessing any threat posed by the occupants before opening fire. Some rounds penetrated a neighboring apartment and endangered the lives of three occupants.

Walker dialed 911 on his cell phone. Walker sounded distraught and told the dispatcher someone had kicked in the door and shot his girlfriend. The dispatcher peppered Walker with questions. In the apartment, Walker was found unharmed. Officers found Taylor on the ground beside Walker, bleeding profusely. There were bullet holes everywhere, including in a neighboring apartment where a young child lived.

Taylor had five gunshot wounds, one to the left upper breast killed her. In September 2020, Cameron released the recording of the grand jury proceedings in the case of Taylor to the court. It was not clear when the recording would be available to the public, though Cameron indicated he would not try to prevent it from being publicly released. The grand jury was meant to be a secretive body, it was apparent that the public interest in this case was not going to allow that to happen.

Cameron had an ethical obligation not to release the recording.

But despite these concerns, Cameron would comply with the Judge’s order to release the recording. The judge’s order came as part of the case against former detective Hankison, the only person the grand jury charged. While none of the officers involved in Taylor’s fatal shooting were charged directly in her death, Hankison was charged for blindly firing his gun outside of her apartment.

The recording would likely include what the Cameron’s office presented to the grand jury, as well as any possible witness testimony. The grand jury’s decision not to charge any of the officers in Taylor’s death sparked nationwide outrage and days of protests. Grand jury proceedings are typically not made public, but Taylor’s family and their attorneys had called for their release, claiming that the attorney general’s announcement of the charging decision left out crucial details about what evidence was shown to the grand jury and how it was presented.

One of the major points of contention was whether officers announced themselves before entering Taylor’s home for a drug raid. Officers said they did, but Walker said that they did not, and that he only fired at them because he thought they were intruders. A witness said he heard officers announced themselves, but family attorney Benjamin Crump had spoken with 12 witnesses who said they did not.

It was vital to know if the jurors heard from all of the witnesses, or only the person Cameron mentioned in his announcement.

If Cameron only presented his perspective and did not present the other 12 neighbors, then he had unilaterally made a decision on whether or not Taylor would ever get due process, whether she would ever get justice, and that was not right. Cameron was confident the recordings would support the validity of the grand jury’s decision. Cameron had no concerns with grand jurors sharing their thoughts on his presentation because he was confident in the case he presented.

Once the public listened to the recording, they would see that over the course of two-and-a-half days, Cameron presented a thorough and complete case to the grand jury. Cameron’s announcement came just hours after one of the grand jurors accused him in a legal filing of using the grand jurors as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility for these decisions. The accusation came as part of a notice to file a motion asking the court both to release the full grand jury proceedings, and to allow members of the grand jury to speak about some parts of the case.

The release would satisfy the anonymous juror’s request. In the notice, the juror said Cameron attempted to make it very clear that the grand jury alone made the decision on who and what to charge based solely on the evidence presented to them. The juror also asked the court for permission to share details surrounding the actions outside of those recorded proceedings and anything that did not happen in the grand jury proceedings.

That included discussion of charges that were not presented to the grand jury, explanations of the law that were not provided to the grand jury, defenses or justifications that were not detailed during the proceedings, witnesses that did not testify, potential defendants that were not presented, and/or individuals or officials who were not present for the proceedings.

Hours after a Kentucky grand jury brought no charges against Louisville police for Taylor’s death, protesters took to the streets. Two officers were shot and wounded during the demonstrations expressing anger over the killings of Black people at the hands of police. Interim Louisville Police Chief Robert Schroeder said a suspect was in custody but did not offer details about whether that person was participating in the demonstrations.

Both officers were expected to recover. The officers were shot after investigating reports of gunfire at an intersection where there was a large crowd. Several shots rang out as protesters in downtown Louisville tried to avoid police blockades, moving down an alleyway as officers lobbed pepper balls. People covered their ears, ran away, and frantically looked for places to hide.

Police with long guns swarmed the area, then officers in riot gear and military-style vehicles blocked off roadways. The violence came after prosecutors said two officers who fired their weapons at Taylor, a Black woman, were justified in using force to protect themselves after they faced gunfire from her boyfriend. The only charges were three counts of wanton endangerment against fired Hankison for shooting into a home next to Taylor’s with people inside.

The FBI investigated potential violations of federal law in connection with the raid at Taylor’s home on March 13th 2020.

Crump denounced the decision as outrageous and offensive. Scuffles broke out between police and protesters, and some were arrested. Officers fired flash bangs and a few small fires burned in a square that had been at the center of protests, but it had largely cleared out ahead of a nighttime curfew as demonstrators marched through other parts of downtown Louisville.

Dozens of patrol cars blocked the city’s major thoroughfare. Demonstrators also marched in cities like New York, Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. Taylor, an emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times by white officers who entered her home during a narcotics investigation. Cameron said that while the officers had a no-knock warrant, the investigation showed they announced themselves before entering.

The warrant used to search her home was connected to a suspect who did not live there, and no drugs were found inside. Along with the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, Taylor’s case became a major touchstone for nationwide protests that had drawn attention to entrenched racism and demanded police reform. Taylor’s image had been painted on streets, emblazoned on protest signs, and silk-screened on T-shirts worn by celebrities.

Several prominent African American celebrities joined those urging that the officers be charged.

The announcement drew sadness, frustration, and anger that the grand jury did not go further. The wanton endangerment charges each carry a sentence of up to five years. It was almost like a slap in the face. Governor Andy Beshear authorized a limited deployment of the National Guard. Beshear also urged Cameron to post online all the evidence that could be released without affecting the charges filed.

Those that were feeling frustration, feeling hurt, they deserved to know more. The case exposed the wide gulf between public opinion on justice for those who kill Black Americans and the laws under which those officers were charged, which regularly favor police and did not often result in steep criminal accusations. Criminal law is not meant to respond to every sorrow and grief.

Cameron, Kentucky’s first Black attorney general, said the officers acted in self-defense after Taylor’s boyfriend fired at them. Hankison and the two other officers who entered Taylor’s apartment announced themselves before entering and so did not execute the warrant as “no knock”. The city had since banned such warrants. According to Kentucky law, the use of force by Officers Mattingly and Cosgrove was justified to protect themselves.

This justification barred the law from pursuing criminal charges in Taylor’s death.

FBI crime lab determined that Cosgrove fired the bullet that killed Taylor. Taylor’s boyfriend, Walker, opened fire when police burst in, hitting Mattingly. Walker told police he heard knocking but did not know who was coming in and fired in self-defense. Cameron, who is a Republican, is a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and had been tagged by some as McConnell’s heir apparent.

Cameron was also one of 20 names on President Donald Trump’s list to fill a future Supreme Court vacancy. Justice is not often easy. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, called for police reforms. Biden said United States should start by addressing excessive force, banning chokeholds, and overhauling no-knock warrants.

Hankison was fired on June 23rd 2020. A termination letter sent by Schroeder said Hankison had violated procedures by showing extreme indifference to the value of human life when he wantonly and blindly fired his weapon. Mattingly, Cosgrove, and the detective who sought the warrant, Joshua Jaynes, were placed administrative reassignment. The city settled a lawsuit against the three officers brought by Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, agreeing to pay her $12 million and enact police reforms.

From the start, Doctor Rebecca Shadowen, an infectious disease specialist in Kentucky, advocated for social distancing, hand-washing, and mask-wearing.

Shadowen hoped her community of Bowling Green could become a model for the rest of her state, where residents sparred over stay-at-home orders and challenged Kentucky’s mask mandate in the courts. In May 2020, while offering her expertise as a member of the Bowling Green-Warren County Covid Workgroup, Shadowen fell ill. At first, Shadowen complained of feeling tired, but on the night she was taken to the hospital, she woke up saying she was short of breath.

Shadowen toggled between local hospitals, at times being placed on a ventilator and in the intensive care unit. During weeks Shadowen regained her strength, she was lucid enough to continue working from her hospital bed and share what she knew about the virus that was ravaging her body in unexpected ways. There were multiple times Shadowen thought she was turning the corner and thought she was on the road to recovery.

But after dealing with complications from the virus, including abdominal bleeding and weakened lungs, Shadowen died on September 11th 2020 surrounded by her husband and two adult children. Shadowen was 62. Shadowen and her husband were college sweethearts at Western Kentucky University, and together they enrolled at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

Shadowen went on to specialize in infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and Lyme disease.

Shadowen worked out of the Medical Center at Bowling Green, where colleagues leaned on her medical knowledge of more than three decades and she enjoyed helping medical students and residents.