Louisville police were “negligent” and “criminal” in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor during a botched raid on March 13, two grand jurors in the case said in their first interviews.
The two men, who asked to remain anonymous, also said Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron misled the public when he said that “the grand jury agreed” that murder charges against three cops weren’t warranted, according to a new interview on “CBS This Morning” scheduled to air Wednesday.
Both grand jurors told the station they believed cops were at fault in the raid that led to Taylor’s death in a barrage of police bullets.
“Negligent,” said one of the men, identified by the station as Juror No. 1. “They couldn’t even provide a risk assessment, and it sounded like they hadn’t done one. So, their organization leading up to this was lacking. That’s what I mean by they were negligent in the operations.”
Juror No. 2 told co-host Gayle King that he believed the actions of the three cops — Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Detective Myles Cosgrove, and since-fired Detective Brett Hankison — were “criminal.”
“They were criminal leading up to this,” he said. “The way they moved forward on it, including the warrant, was deception.”
Police executed the no-knock warrant seeking drugs they believed were stashed in Taylor’s apartment by her ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover.
No drugs were ever found.
Taylor’s boyfriend at the time of her death, Kenneth Walker, disputes the claim that police announced themselves before they burst in — prompting him to pull out a licensed handgun and fire at the intruders.
Mattingly was wounded in the exchange and Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times and killed.
Cameron convened a grand jury in the case, with the panel meeting at a secret location for safety reasons. The panel ultimately indicted Hankison on charges that he “wantonly” fired into a neighboring apartment.
But neither Hankison nor the other two cops were charged with criminal wrongdoing in Taylor’s death.
Following a Sept. 23 press conference by Cameron, one of the jurors filed a petition in court to be allowed to speak about the case — and revealed that the attorney general never allowed the grand jury to consider homicide charges.
The second juror later asked to speak out as well.
The judge approved the request and also ordered Cameron to release recordings of the proceedings.
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