Breonna Taylor death: four Louisville police officers charged
The US Department of Justice on Thursday brought civil rights charges against four current and former Louisville police officers for their roles in the 2020 fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was killed in her home, a case that stirred national protests over police brutality.
Federal investigators alleged that the members of a Louisville unit called Place-Based Investigations “falsified” the affidavit used to obtain a search warrant, violating Taylor’s civil rights.
The indictment noted that in early 2020, Louisville police obtained five search warrants as part of a drug investigation, four at locations in the city’s West End.
Another was issued for Taylor’s residence, 10 miles away, on suspicion that her ex-boyfriend, a convicted drug trafficker, stashed cash or packages there.
In March 2020, Louisville police conducted a no-knock warrant at Taylor’s home. After police entered, her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a single shot from his handgun, as he believed intruders had entered the house.
The indictment states that Louisville police then shot into the apartment more than 30 times. Taylor was hit six times.
The indictment notes that two officers, Det Joshua Jaynes and Sgt Kyle Meany, allegedly knew the affidavit “contained false and misleading statements” that supposedly linked Taylor to alleged drug trafficking and “omitted material facts” that undermined the claims.
The affidavit also “relied on stale information” and “was not supported by probable cause”, according to the indictment.
Jaynes, who no longer works for Louisville police, applied for the warrant to search Taylor’s house.
Jaynes and Meany also allegedly knew the search warrant would be carried out by armed officers and their
presence “could create a dangerous situation both for those officers and for anyone who happened to be in Taylor’s home”, the federal indictment said.
In January 2021, the then Louisville police interim chief, Yvette Gentry, fired Jaynes for violating department standards in the preparation of a search warrant execution and for being “untruthful” in the Taylor warrant.
“Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in a press release.
The Courier-Journal newspaper reported that the FBI arrested and took Joshua Jaynes into custody on Thursday
morning. Meany has pleaded not guilty to federal charges.
The DoJ also charged Jaynes with conspiracy, for “agreeing with another detective to cover up the false warrant affidavit after Taylor’s death” and for falsifying a report “with the intent to impede a criminal investigation into Taylor’s death”.
It also charged the former officer Kelly Goodlett for “conspiring with Jaynes to falsify the warrant affidavit” and to “file a false report to cover up the false affidavit”.
Federal officials charged Meany with making a false statement to federal investigators.
In a separate indictment, federal officials charged former officer Brett Hankinson for using “unconstitutionally excessive force” when he blindly fired multiple shots through Taylor’s bedroom window and into the living room through a sliding glass door, hitting an adjacent apartment.
The assistant US attorney general Kristen Clarke told reporters Hankison fired the shots “without a lawful objective justifying the use of deadly force”.
Louisville police dismissed Hankison in 2020. He was indicted for state charges of wanton endangerment but acquitted earlier this year.
“On 13 March 2020, Breonna Taylor should have awakened in her home as usual, but tragically she did not,”
Clarke said. “These indictments reflect the justice department’s commitment to preserving the integrity of the criminal justice system and to protecting the constitutional rights of every American.”
The civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented Taylor’s family with local attorneys Lonita Baker and Sam Aguiar, said the federal indictments marked “a huge step toward justice”.
Crump, Baker and Aguiar noted that the last two years had been “extremely difficult” for Taylor’s family. They also thanked Garland, Clarke and advocates who have “continued to fight” for justice.
“We hope this announcement of a guilty plea sends a message to all other involved officers that it is time to stop covering up and time to accept responsibility for their roles in causing the death of an innocent, beautiful young Black woman,” the attorneys said in a statement.
At Jefferson Square Park, the site of protests following her daughter’s killing, Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, said the federal indictments were “overdue” and the public was now learning what the family knew from the start: that the officers “shouldn’t have been there and Breonna didn’t deserve that”.
“I’ve waited 874 days for today,” she told WLKY.