Ky. grand jury audio details raid leading to Taylor’s death
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Police said they knocked and identified themselves for a minute or more before bursting into Breonna Taylor’s apartment, but her boyfriend said he did not hear officers announce themselves, according to Kentucky grand jury recordings released Friday. In the hail of gunfire that ensued, the 26-year-old Black woman was killed.
The dramatic and conflicting accounts of the March 13 raid are key to a case that has set off nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism. When police came through the door using a battering ram, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, opened fire. If he’d heard police announce themselves, Walker said, “it changes the whole situation because there’s nothing for us to be scared of.”
The details were contained in hours of recordings made public Friday in a rare release for proceedings that are typically kept secret.
A court ruled that the material should be released after the grand jury did not charge the officers with Taylor’s killing, angering many. The material does not include juror deliberations or prosecutor recommendations and statements, none of which were recorded, according to the state attorney general’s office.
Louisville police Lt. Shawn Hoover said officers with a narcotics warrant approached Taylor’s apartment door and announced themselves as police and knocked three times.
“We knocked on the door, said ‘police,’ waited I don’t know 10 or 15 seconds. Knocked again, said ‘police,’ waited even longer,” Hoover said in an interview recorded the day Taylor was shot, and later played for the grand jury.
“So it was the third time that we were approaching, it had been like 45 seconds if not a minute,” Hoover said. “And then I said, ‘Let’s go, let’s breach it.’ ”
Another officer said they waited as much as two minutes. Whether or not officers announced themselves has been a key issue in the case because Taylor’s boyfriend said he only fired at police because he feared they were intruders.
Police said they used a battering ram to enter the apartment, hitting the door three times. Detective Michael Nobles said officers made so much noise that an upstairs neighbor came outside and had to be told to go back inside.
According to the grand jury recordings, Detective Jonathan Mattingly got shot as soon as he leaned inside the apartment.
Mattingly said in testimony, some of which was previously released, that he fired four gunshots as he fell on his backside. Officer Brett Hankison said in a recorded police interview that moments after the doors was broken down he saw darkness and then “immediate illumination from fire.”
“What I saw at the time was a figure in a shooting stance and it looked as if he was holding, he or she was holding, an AR-15 or a long gun, a rifle,” said Hankison, who was later indicted on charges of wanton endangerment for firing shots that went into another home with people inside.
Walker was, in fact, using a handgun.
Hoover said he believed Walker and Taylor were lying in wait for the officers.
Officers had a “noknock” warrant to search Taylor’s apartment for drugs. But Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has also said officers announced themselves.
One law enforcement officer testified that police ultimately never executed the warrant.