Two other officers involved in the March shooting — Sgt. John Mattingly and Det. Myles Cosgrove — were not charged following months of demonstrations calling for the arrests of all the officers.
The long-awaited findings of a grand jury probe into the fatal police shooting were to be announced by Kentucky’s Attorney General Daniel Cameron Wednesday afternoon.
Demonstrators at makeshift memorial to Taylor in downtown Louisville called for Cameron to step down after the charges were announced in court and the former’s detective’s bond was set at $15,000.
The grand jury was to present its report to Jefferson County Circuit Judge Annie O’Connell at 1:15 p.m., according to a statement from the Administrative Office of the Courts. Cameron’s news conference is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
Depending on the grand jury’s findings, Cameron’s options range from declining to prosecute to charging one or more officers.
Louisville has prepared for the possibility of unrest from the decision. For months, protesters have criticized the length of the investigation and demanded the arrests of all officers involved.
Anticipating new protests, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and Louisville Interim Police Chief Robert Schroeder Wednesday afternoon announced a 72-hour countywide curfew starting 9 p.m. Government buildings will be closed.
The Kentucky National Guard has been activated, Schroeder said.
“I urge everyone to commit once again to a peaceful, lawful response, like we’ve seen here for the majority of the past several months,” Fisher said.
High-risk, forced-entry raid has deadly outcome
Taylor’s ex-boyfriend was the actual focus of a narcotics investigation that led officers to execute the warrant on her apartment, where no drugs were found.
Police said a man was shipping drugs to Taylor’s apartment to avoid detection of a trafficking ring, according to a police affidavit for a search warrant, which was obtained by CNN.
The search warrant authorized police to search Taylor’s apartment, two vehicles, and three people, including Taylor, and to seize, among other things, drugs and drug paraphernalia, money, safes, weapons, documents and computers. The warrant did not specifically connect Taylor to any alleged drug activity, and Taylor’s family and their attorney have maintained that she was not involved in her ex-boyfriend’s alleged drug trade.
Taylor was sleeping next to her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, in the early hours of March 13, and when they heard a noise they both got up and walked to the door.
“She’s yelling at the top of her lungs — and I am too at this point — ‘who is it?’ ” recalled Walker, her boyfriend. “No answer. No response. No anything.”
Walker told investigators when he heard banging at the door his first thought was that it was Taylor’s ex-boyfriend. He was concerned there might be trouble, so he grabbed his gun.
As Walker and Taylor made their way down a hallway toward the front door, Walker said, the door flew off its hinges.
“So I just let off one shot,” he said. “I still can’t see who it is or anything.”
After the officers used a battering ram to enter, Mattingly was shot in the leg, severing his femoral artery, he told investigators.
He and two other officers — Hankison and Det. Myles Cosgrove — then discharged their weapons, according to the CNN review. Taylor was killed in the barrage of shots from the three officers. Walker, who was unharmed, dialed 911 and told the dispatcher someone had kicked in the door and shot his girlfriend.
Officer accused of ‘blindly’ firing 10 shots
Mattingly’s attorney, Todd McMurtry, defended his client’s conduct.
“Sgt. Mattingly was following orders of superior officers, was not involved in the planning process of the arrest, and at all times followed established police procedures,” McMurtry said.
Walker was arrested and, six days later, indicted for the attempted murder of a police officer. The Louisville area’s top local prosecutor later agreed to have the indictment against Walker dismissed.
Schroeder, the interim police chief, wrote in a June letter that Hankison violated standard operating procedure when his “actions displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he “wantonly and blindly fired ten (10) rounds” into Taylor’s apartment.
Some rounds reached an apartment next door, “endangering the three lives in that apartment,” Schroeder wrote. The chief called the officer’s conduct “a shock to the conscience.”
The officers were not wearing body cameras, police said.
Schroeder wrote that Hankison was disciplined in January 2019 for reckless conduct that injured an “innocent person.” He gave no other details.
Lawsuits and legislation bearing Breonna’s name
The Louisville city council in June passed Breonna’s Law, which banned no-knock warrants and requires officers serving search warrants to wear body cameras.
“I cannot begin to imagine Ms. Palmer’s pain,” Fischer said, referring to Taylor’s mother. “And I am deeply, deeply sorry for Breonna’s death.”
Taylor, described by relatives as a hard-working, goal-oriented young woman who placed an emphasis on family, had been working as a certified emergency medical technician at the time of her death.
Walker said in the $10.5 million suit that he was maliciously prosecuted for firing a single bullet with his licensed firearm at “assailants” who “violently broke down the door” after midnight that March.
CNN’s Eric Levenson, Mark Morales and Shimon Prokupecz contributed to this report.
