Breonna Taylor Shooting

Lyv said:

If you're not familiar with the March shooting of Breonna Taylor there is a timeline here.

New development today.

Grand juror files suit seeking release of transcript in Breonna Taylor case



I've never heard of a grand juror doing this before, but good for them. It's seemed obvious to me that Cameron and the police were carrying out (or trying to) a cover up. I hope the truth does come out and Breonna Taylor receives the justice too often denied unarmed Black men, women, and children killed by police.

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Ravioli said:

This whole thing is so monstrous, from the shooting to how it was handled legally. What little worth is given to black lives AGAIN, and also the constructed importance of the "war on drugs". No cop shoots up a liquor store, what's so much more awful about pot or meth that justifies destroying human lives? Remember they chucked a grenade in a baby's face in a no knock drug raid I vaguely remember also being at the wrong address. It makes me so angry. And you're allowed to have a gun, except to defend yourself when people are storming your home, then that gun gives them the right to empty their clips into you? Call me naive, but all of this is WRONG.

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A grand jury was later convened and ultimately recommended charges against former Louisville Metro Police Department Officer Brett Hankison, who is now facing three counts of wanton endangerment. Hankinson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.


Neither Hankison nor the two other officers involved in the shooting were charged in connection with Taylor's death -- the charges against Hankison stem from the errant bullets that penetrated a wall of the residence and entered a neighboring apartment occupied by a child, a man and a pregnant woman.

Kevin Glogower, who is now representing two anonymous grand jurors in the case, had previously asked the judge to release discovery information and to allow jurors to speak publicly, despite long-standing practices against doing so.


Glogower's clients released a statement following Tuesday's order, claiming that prosecutors only presented the three wanton endangerment charges against Hankison.


"Being one of the jurors on the Breonna Taylor case was a learning experience. The three weeks of service leading up to that presentation showed how the grand jury normally operates. The Breonna Taylor case was quite different. After hearing the Attorney General Daniel Cameron's press conference, and with my duty as a grand juror being over, my duty as a citizen compelled action," the statement said. "The grand jury did not have homicide offenses explained to them. The grand jury never heard anything about those laws. Self defense or justification was never explained either."


They said "questions were asked about additional charges," but the grand jury was told there would be none because the prosecutors didn't feel they could make them stick.


"The grand jury didn't agree that certain actions were justified, nor did it decide the indictment should be the only charges in the Breonna Taylor case," the statement said. "The grand jury was not given the opportunity to deliberate on those charges and deliberated only on what was presented to them. I cannot speak for other jurors but I can help the truth be told."

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...Former Detective Joshua Jaynes, 40, Detective Kelly Goodlett and Sgt. Kyle Meany, 35, were charged with submitting a false affidavit to search Taylor's home ahead of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department's raid, and then working together to create a "false cover story in an attempt to escape responsibility for their roles in preparing the warrant affidavit that contained false information," according to court documents.
Ex-detective Brett Hankison is alleged to have "willfully used unconstitutionally excessive force ... when he fired his service weapon into Taylor's apartment through a covered window and covered glass door." He is charged with depriving Taylor and a guest in her home "of their constitutional rights by firing shots through a bedroom window that was covered with blinds and a blackout curtain," the US Department of Justice said.
The 46-year-old also faces charges of depriving three of Taylor's neighbors of their constitutional rights as, according to the indictment, the bullets he fired traveled through a wall in Taylor's home and into an adjacent apartment.
Jaynes and Meany stand accused of willfully depriving Taylor of her constitutional rights by drafting and approving a false affidavit to obtain a search warrant, while knowing "the affidavit contained false and misleading statements, omitted material facts, relied on stale information, and was not supported by probable cause," the DOJ statement said. Both men "knew that the execution of the search warrant would be carried out by armed LMPD officers, and could create a dangerous situation both for those officers and for anyone who happened to be in Taylor's home," it said.
Goodlett conspired with Jaynes and Meany to "falsify the search warrant for Taylor's home and to cover up their actions afterward," the statement said.
Jaynes and another detective tried to cover up their actions by drafting a bogus investigative letter and making false statements to investigators, according to the statement. Jaynes falsified a report in hopes of impeding a criminal probe into Taylor's death; Meany also made false statements, the statement said.
Goodlett and Jaynes met in a garage weeks after the botched raid and conspired to relay false information to investigators, the attorney general alleged.
"We allege that Ms. Taylor's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when defendants Joshua Jaynes, Kyle Meany and Kelly Goodlett sought a warrant to search Ms. Taylor's home knowing the officers lacked probable cause for the search," Garland said.
The affidavit falsely claimed officers had verified that the target of their drug trafficking investigation had received packages at Taylor's address, but Jaynes and Goodlett knew that was not true, Garland said.

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