USA TODAY International Edition
Grand juror: Let the ‘ truth’ come out
Motion seeks transcripts, permission to speak
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – “The public deserves to know everything.”
That’s the case Louisville attorney Kevin Glogower made Tuesday for an anonymous grand juror who is asking a judge to release secret recordings in the Breonna Taylor decision and let jurors speak freely about what happened.
In a news conference early Tuesday, Glogower pointed to statements Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has made about the decision to charge officers in Taylor’s death, saying they “don’t fit together” with what a grand jury decided – and what Cameron’s office decided for them.
“The grand jury is meant to be a secretive body. It’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen.”
Daniel Cameron Kentucky attorney general
Cameron said the grand jury agreed Louisville officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove justifiably shot Taylor, a 26- year- old unarmed Black woman, after her boyfriend fired at them first, thinking they were intruders.
The only charges handed down were against a third officer, Brett Hankison, who faces three counts of felony wanton endangerment for firing into an occupied apartment next to Taylor’s while officers were trying to serve a search warrant March 13. He was fired in June.
Cameron’s spokeswoman acknowledged Monday night that the only rec
ommendation prosecutors made to the grand jury was the wanton endangerment charges.
“I think it leaves, wide open, what was presented, which has been directly asked and not been answered,” Glogower said Tuesday morning at a news conference, flanked by three fellow attorneys.
Glogower’s comments came just 18 hours after he, on behalf of the anonymous grand juror, filed a motion in Jefferson County Circuit Court requesting the release of the records and seeking permission for grand jurors to speak about the Taylor case.
“It’s not really about changing the narrative,” Glogower said. “It’s about opening it up to a more full truth for everybody to see.”
To comply with a judge’s order, Cameron agreed Monday night that he’ll release the grand jury recording Wednesday. The judge gave him a noon deadline.
The first- term attorney general’s handling of the case has come under scrutiny since Wednesday, when a grand jury indicted one of the three officers connected to the March 13 shooting. The lack of charges reinvigorated protests in Louisville and sparked new demonstrations in cities across the USA.
While former Louisville Metro Police detective Brett Hankison faces three counts of wanton endangerment for bullets that went into a neighbor’s apartment, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove were not charged.
Attorneys for Taylor’s family have slammed Cameron, calling on him to disclose what charges he presented to grand jurors and to release the transcripts and recording of the 2 ½ - day presentation.
At a news conference last week, Cameron told reporters that homicide charges were “not applicable to the facts before us because our investigation showed, and the grand jury agreed, that Mattingly and Cosgrove are justified in the return of deadly fire, after having been fired upon by Kenneth Walker.”
Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, was home with Taylor when police tried to serve the search warrant just before 1 a. m. and has admitted to firing the first shot. Three officers returned more than 30 rounds, striking Taylor six times.