Kentucky’s top prosecutor says he never recommended grand jurors return homicide charges against the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor and says he won’t try to block the release of grand jury recordings.
In a statement Monday night, Attorney General Daniel Cameron acknowledged he only asked for wanton endangerment charges against the three Louisville Metro Police officers who fired a total of 32 bullets into Taylor’s apartment while serving a no-knock warrant on March 13.
“The grand jury is meant to be a secretive body. It’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen,” Cameron said in the statement obtained by the New York Daily News.
“As the special prosecutor, our team has an ethical obligation not to release the recording from the grand jury proceedings, and we stand by our belief that such a release could compromise the ongoing federal investigation and could have unintended consequences such as poisoning the jury pool,” he said. “Despite these concerns, we will comply with the Judge’s order to release the recording on Wednesday.”
“Once the public listens to the recording, they will see that over the course of two-and-a-half days, our team presented a thorough and complete case to the grand jury,” he said.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron addresses the media following the return of a grand jury investigation into the death of Breonna Taylor, in Frankfort, Ky., Wednesday, Sept. 23. Of the three Louisville Metro police officers being investigated, one was indicted. Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press
“Our prosecutors presented all of the evidence, even though the evidence supported that Sergeant Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by (Taylor’s boyfriend) Kenneth Walker. For that reason, the only charge recommended was wanton endangerment,” he said.
Taylor, a Black emergency room technician and aspiring nurse, was hit six times by the police gunfire and died at the scene, Cameron said last week. She was in bed at the time the officers used a battering ram to break down her door shortly after midnight.
Breonna Taylor Courtesy of Taylor Family attorney Sam Aguiar via Associated Press
Walker, a licensed gun owner, fired a single shot in self-defense because the couple had no idea who the officers were and thought the incident was a home invasion, lawyers for Taylor’s family said.
Cameron presented the case against the officers to a grand jury last week, and they returned no charges at all related to Taylor’s death.
The only indictment returned involved three wanton endangerment charges against former LMPD officer Brett Hankison for the bullets he allegedly fired into a white family’s adjacent apartment.
The lack of charges led to a fresh wave of protests in Louisville and around the country last week.
The LMPD officers were serving the no-knock warrant related to a narcotics investigation involving a man Taylor previously knew who had been apprehended at a different location before the raid.
Hankison, who was fired from the force in June for “blindly” firing his weapon, pleaded not guilty to the wanton endangerment charges Monday.
Cameron issued his statement after an unidentified grand juror filed a court motion Monday asking a judge to release the grand jury testimony and allow the panel members to speak publicly.
“The full story and absolute truth of how this matter was handled from beginning to end is now an issue of great public interest and has become a large part of the discussion of public trust throughout the country,” the attorney for the juror wrote in the court filing obtained by the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The juror wishes to remain anonymous, the Courier-Journal reported.
“The attorney general publicly made many statements that referenced what the grand jury heard and decisions that were made based on what certain witnesses said,” the motion filed Monday afternoon read, according to the Courier-Journal.
“He further laid those decisions at the feet of the grand jury while failing to answer specific questions regarding the charges presented,” the motion said.
In his statement late Monday, Cameron also addressed the complaint filed by the grand juror.
He said he had no problem with panelists speaking about their experience.
“We have no concerns with grand jurors sharing their thoughts on our presentation because we are confident in the case we presented,” he said.
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