NO SLAY CHARGES
● All 3 officers in Breonna killing avoid murder rap ● 2 cops shot during protest
Two Louisville police officers were shot Wednesday night amid protests that erupted after the indictment of just one cop involved in the death of Breonna Taylor — and for charges related to the “endangerment” of her white neighbors.
The two officers were taken to the hospital, said Police Chief Robert Schroeder, and a suspect was in custody.
Schroder said the officers’ injuries appeared to. be non-life-threatening. One was “alert and stable,” the chief said; the other was in surgery. The gunfire was reported about 8:30 p.m.
The protests came after grand jury charged former Louisville Metro Police officer Brett Hankison with three counts of felony wanton endangerment after finding some of his bullets whipped by Taylor and entered a nearby apartment occupied by a man, a pregnant woman and a child.
Taylor, meanwhile, was struck six times by .40 caliber bullets fired by Det. Myles Cosgrove and Sgt. John Mattingly as the officers served a no-knock warrant on her apartment in the “wee hours” of March
13 as part of a narcotics investigation, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said at a press conference.
Taylor, 26, was a Black EMT, emergency room technician and aspiring nurse who had already gone to bed that night when the officers used a battering ram to burst through her door. The terrifying intrusion caused her licensed gun-owner boyfriend Kenneth Walker to fire a warning shot, lawyers for Taylor’s family have said.
Giving new details of law enforcement’s six-month investigation, Cameron said Wednesday that Taylor was struck six times — not the five listed in her death certificate. He also claimed the officers “both knocked and announced” themselves, a detail Taylor’s family aand other witnesses dispute.
Mattingly was “the first and only officer to enter the residence,” Cameron ssaid. He allegedly saw the couple standing together at the “end of the hall,” with Walker “holding a gun, arms extended iin a shooting stance,” Cameron said.
Walker fired first, his 9-millimeter round striking Mattingly in the thigh.
“Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend,” Walker said in his clearly confused 911 call.
Mattingly fired six shots, Cameron said, while Cosgrove fired his weapon 16 times “almost simultaneously” from the doorway.
The prosecutor said his
investigation determined only one of the shots that hit Taylor was fatal. He said it was fired by Cosgrove and likely ended her life within a couple minutes.
Cameron said there’s no “conclusive evidence” any of Hankison’s bullets struck Taylor.
“Our investigation found that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by Kenneth Walker,” Cameron said.
If convicted as charged, Hankison faces a maximum of five years in prison for each wanton endangerment count.
President Trump addressed the ruling, saying, “I thought it was really brilliant, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, he’s doing a fantastic job, I think he’s a star.” Yet he offered no sympathy or support for Taylor’s family. The president said he’d been in touch with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, praising him for deploying the National Guard.
Lawyers for the Taylor family issued a joint statement calling the grand jury decision “outrageous and offensive to Breonna Taylor’s memory.”
“If Hankison’s behavior constituted wanton endangerment of the people in the apartment next to hers, then it should also be considered wanton endangerment of Breonna,” said the lawyers, including civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
They called it “ironic and typical” that the only charges in the indictment involve the bullets that entered the apartment of the white neighbor. They said the decision ignores the “shots fired into the Black neighbor’s apartment” upstairs.
“This amounts to the most egregious disrespect of Black people, especially Black women, killed by police in America, and it’s indefensible,” the lawyers said.
Taylor has become an internationally recognized face of Black Lives Matter protests, her name ringing out alongside George Floyd’s and many others and her image emblazoned on posters, walls and T-shirts.
State and local officials had been girding for Wednesday’s announcement for days, with National Guard troops brought in to help shut down streets and enforce a curfew in the city that’s been the site of nightly demonstrations for months.
Officers were already arresting protesters hours before darkness fell.
In New York, protests took place in Manhattan and at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
“Being in New York City, I feel far away from it in a certain way, like I could do more if I were where George Floyd or Breonna Taylor got killed,” said Kenroy Hardie, 16, from the Bronx. “But in New York City, we have strength in numbers, and a lot of people come out to protest. And police violence is definitely the same across the country.”
NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Willliams lamented the Louisville indictment as well.
“We learned again today that damage of property seems to be more important than a Black woman sleeping in her bed,” Williams said.”I’m not okay. Folks are not okay, I know black women are not okay,” he said. “Nothing has changed,” since the Floyd killing, Williams said. “That’s the problem. I’m a little exasperated right now trying to figure this out, cause I don’t know.”
Outrage also spread on social media.
“Justice has NOT been served,” tweeted Linda Sarsour, of the activist group Until Freedom.
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose kneeling during the national anthem turned him into a lightning rod of controversy, tweeted, “The white supremacist institution of policing that stole Breonna Taylor’s life from us must be abolished for the safety and well being of our people.”
More than three months after Taylor’s killing, Hankison was finally fired by the Louisville Metro Police Department, which said he “wantonly and blindly” fired 10 rounds with a shocking disregard for life.
He has appealed his firing. Mattingly and Cosgrove, meanwhile, were not disciplined beyond their administrative reassignment.
Last week, Taylor’s family settled a civil wrongful-death lawsuit with Louisville officials for $12 million, the largest amount the city has ever paid over an officer shooting someone.
In his comments Wednesday, Cameron urged people to remain peaceful and focus on the facts in the case.
“The decision before my office as the special prosecutor in this case was not to decide if the loss of Ms. Taylor’s life was a tragedy. ... the answer to that is unequivocally yes,” he said.
“I understand that Breonna Taylor’s death is part of a national story, but the facts and evidence in this case are different than others,” he said. “If we simply act on emotion or outrage, there is no justice.”
He said “mob justice is not