Ever since the death of Breonna Taylor on March 13, no definitive answer as to who should be charged has been made clear.
Taylor’s ex-boyfriend was the target of the botched, no-knock, fatal raid that killed Taylor in her Louisville apartment. According to Louisville Police, the ex-boyfriend was using Taylor’s current apartment as a drug stash house. This turned out to not be the case. No drugs or money were found. The ex-boyfriend was also in custody.
The only officer that was charged was Brett Hankinson. The only charge he got was wonton endangerment for firing his weapon into a neighboring apartment during the raid.
The officers not only knew they had the wrong apartment, but that the suspect was also in custody. There was no reason to execute the raid.
Kentucky Attorney General, Daniel Cameron has refused to charge the officers involved with murder. His reason is that the raid was justified, even though all the evidence says the opposite.
If Cameron wants to keep his job, he needs to charge all three officers with murder.
Taylor’s current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker recounted to CBS This Morning the painstaking details of the night of March 13.
“We had just gone out to eat on a date. After getting home, we decided to play UNO and watch a movie. I heard a loud knock at the door and asked who it was.” After not getting an answer after several repeated attempts, Walker grabbed his gun.
“I'm a million percent sure that nobody identified themselves. If they had knocked on the door and say who it was, we could hear them. It was dead silent. If it was the police at the door and they just said, 'We're the police," me or Breonna didn't have a reason at all not to open the door to see what they wanted.”
The door flies off the hinges and Walker fired one shot thinking he was defending the apartment from burglars. The police then return fire 32 times from all directions. They end up striking Taylor, who would later succumb to her injuries.
After the gunfire stopped, Walker said that Taylor was alive and breathing. “I call my mother as I’m holding my girlfriend. I told my mother that the door had been breached and that someone had shot Breonna. My mother is freaking out and tells me to call 911, so I do.”
The call has since been made public. Walker’s voice can be heard telling the operator that “someone has kicked in the door” and shot Breonna.
“If I knew it was the police, I would not have called the police for help,” Walker told CBS This Morning. “I hung up on 911 and call Taylor’s mother.”
“I don’t think I realized it was the police until I was on the phone with Breonna’s mom. I thought the police were coming for help because I called 911.”
Thinking the people outside were medics, Walker went to them, only to face guns drawn and threats of “dogs and whatever else.”
After telling one of the officers he was not hit, the officer responded by saying it was unfortunate.
No officers have been charged with Taylor’s death.
Since the trial, several of those on the grand jury have spoken out, even taking issue with Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s public characterizations of the panel.
In a September 23 news conference, Cameron said that his investigation found that the two officers who opened fire from Taylor’s doorway were justified because the officers were returning a shot fired by the boyfriend. Because of that, the six possible homicide charges were not applicable.
The grand jury did not agree that certain actions were justified, nor did it decide the indictment should be the only charges in the case.
One grand juror said the panel was never given the option to weigh homicide charges. “The grand jury did not have homicide offenses explained to them. They never heard anything about those laws. Self-defense or justification was never explained either,” according to another grand juror.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Taylor’s family, said that Cameron whitewashed what he presented to the jury.
“We know what we suspected: Attorney General Daniel Cameron took the decision out of the grand jury’s hands. He did not allow the grand jury to do what the law says they have the right to do. This failure rests squarely on Daniel Cameron,” Crump said.
Cameron has repeatedly said that he remains confident in the grand jury’s presentation. While he disagrees with the judge’s ruling that jurors should be allowed to speak, he will not appeal it. Cameron has said he did not present murder charges because investigators the wanton endangerment charges against Hankison would hold up in court.
“As the special prosecutor, it was my decision to ask for an indictment that could be proven under state law. Indictments obtained in the absence of sufficient proof under the law do not stand up and are not fundamentally fair to anyone,” Cameron said in a statement.
While there are still many questions, Cameron needs to come out and admit that police botched the raid and are responsible for her death.
