New Report Says Officers Shouldn’t Have Fired into Breonna Taylor’s Home

ABC News reported that released documents from an internal probe of Breonna Taylor’s fatal shooting show a contradiction. Two investigators determined that none of the officers involved in serving a 2020 narcotics warrant at the 26-year-old’s apartment should have fired their gun the night that Taylor was killed last March. These new finding do not align with those of senior officials in the Louisville Metro Police Department’s, according to the new report issued by the investigators.

“Sgt. Andrew Meyer of the police department’s Professional Standards Unit determined in a preliminary report dated Dec. 4 that the three officers involved in the March 13, 2020, shooting should have held their fire after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot one of them,” according to the documents obtained by ABC News.

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Additionally, ABC News added that according to the report, Meyer wrote that the officers took 32 total shots when the provided circumstances made taking a single shot unsafe. It was stated that Meyer also wrote that this is how the wrong person was shot and killed.

“Meyer made a preliminary finding that Louisville police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who was shot in the leg during the incident, and former officers Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison all allegedly violated department use-of-force policy by ignoring the significant risk of hitting someone who did not pose a threat, the internal report reads,” ABC News also reported, according to the report.

In March of 2020, ABC News said that 26-year-old Taylor–who was an EMT—drifted off to sleep with her boyfriend Kenneth Walker in Louisville, after watching a movie. Police reportedly swept through several city homes which were suspected drug operations, including Taylor’s. ABC News said that police fired 22 bullets into her home. Eight reportedly struck and killed Taylor. Police said they announced themselves many times, although it was said that Taylor repeatedly asked who was there, but she did not receive an answer.

According to The Courier Journal in 2020, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said that the investigation showed that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their use of deadly force, after being fired upon by Walker.

The Washington Times also added that in a review of the fatal shooting from December, a Louisville police investigator wrote in a report that officers serving the narcotics warrant should not have returned fire when Taylor’s boyfriend shot at them, because it put others in danger.

However, AP News reported that Mattingly—who was struck by Walker’s bullet in the leg—was cleared of violating department policy by police officials who overruled Meyer’s findings.

“Two other officers who fired their guns during the raid have been fired for violating use of force policies. Mattingly is retiring on June 1,” The AP News said.