A federal judge on Thursday tossed felony charges against two Louisville police officers that could have landed them in prison for the rest of their lives over their involvement in the 2020 shooting death of Breonna Taylor.
According to a 33-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, set her killing into motion by immediately firing a shot at officers when they came to the 26-year-old victim’s apartment looking for a drug dealer while she was in bed.
The officers, Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany, were accused of knowingly falsifying the warrant that sent cops to Taylor’s door. They weren’t present during the fatal raid.
On Thursday, the judge ruled there was “no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death,” concluding Walker’s decision to shoot first was “the proximate, or legal, cause of Taylor’s death.”
Walker was initially charged with attempted murder of a police officer, but that charge was later dropped after his attorneys contended he believed he was shooting at home invaders rather than police.
In light of the judges’ ruling, charges against Jaynes and Meany were essentially reduced from felony civil rights violations to misdemeanor counts, according to The Associated Press. The pair still face conspiracy charges for making false statements to investigators after Taylor was killed.
A third officer pleaded guilty in that alleged conspiracy and plans to testify against her former colleagues. That cop, Kelly Goodlett, claims she told Taylor the evidence supporting the warrant was problematic.
Officer Brett Hankison is due to go on trial again in October for blindly firing 10 shots into Taylor’s apartment. A Kentucky jury couldn’t agree on a verdict when he first took the stand in November.
A grand jury’s decision not to charge three other officers in connection to Taylor’s killing set off several days of protest in September 2022.
Taylor’s family told The Associated Press on Friday they were “devastated” by the court’s latest decision to reduce the felony charges and are trying to process what happened. Prosecutors plan to appeal the judge’s ruling.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said during her 2020 vice presidential debate with Mike Pence that Taylor’s “family deserves justice.”
Celebrities including Stevie Wonder and Kentuckian George Clooney have also spoken in defense of Taylor.
With News Wire Services