Breonna Taylor.Photo: Breonna Taylor/instagram
Four current and former Louisville Metro Police officers were charged Thursday in connection with the botched raid that resulted inBreonna Taylor’s killing in 2020.
Former officers Joshua Jaynes and Brett Hankison, along with officer Kelly Hanna Goodlett and Sgt. Kyle Meany, who remain on the force, were arrested and charged in two separate federal indictments with civil rights and obstruction offenses, as well as unlawful conspiracies and unconstitutional use of force, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday at a press conference.
Jaynes, Goodlett and Meany were accused of falsifying the affidavit used to obtain a search warrant of Taylor’s Louisville apartment in March of 2020.
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“This act violated federal civil rights laws and those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death,” Garland said.
“Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” he said.
Taylor, an aspiring nurse who had been working as an EMT, was in her apartment with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shortly after midnight on the night of March 13 when Louisville Metro Police officers executing ano-knock warrantcharged through the door and fired more than 20 shots, killing Taylor.
Garland alleged Taylor’s rights were violated when Jaynes, who was fired from the department in 2021, along with Meany and Goodlett, sought the warrant to search Taylor’s home “knowing that the officers lacked probable cause for the search.”
“We allege that the defendants knew the affidavit in support of that warrant contained false and misleading information and that it omitted material information,” Garland said.
Garland alleged the officers also “took steps to cover up their unlawful conduct” after her death.
Jaynes and Goodlett allegedly met in a garage weeks after the shooting in May “where they agreed to tell investigators a false story,” the attorney general alleged.
Hankison, whofired 10 bulletsinto Taylor’s home, three of which pierced the wall and entered a neighbor’s apartment, was acquitted earlier this year on wanton endangerment charges in state court. The FBI charged him with federal civil rights offenses for firing his service weapon into Taylor’s apartment, Garland said.
Hankison’s attorney Stew Mathews tells PEOPLE the charges “were a total surprise.”
“I had no idea when it was going to happen or if it was going to happen,” he says.
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“I would assume he will contest it just like we did in Kentucky,” Mathews says. “We already dealt with it once in Kentucky. We will see what shakes out.”
PEOPLE was not immediately able to reach attorneys for the other three suspects.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump and co-counsel Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker, who represented Taylor’s family, applauded the charges.
The statement added, in part, “On behalf of Breonna’s family, thank you to all who have continued to say her name, continued to pray, continued to fight, and continued to shut down all of the hate, negativity, and lies. There have been so many dark days, so many times when hope was lost. We cannot emphasize enough how pivotal your voices and support have been to keep us going.”
Taylor became a face for theBlack Lives Mattermovement following her death. Her killing, along with the murder ofGeorge Floydtwo months later, sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
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source: people.com
