Grand jury audio details raid that killed Breonna Taylor

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Police said they knocked and announced
themselves for a minute or more before bursting into Breonna Taylor’s
apartment, but her boyfriend said he did not hear officers identify
themselves, according to Kentucky grand jury recordings released Friday.
In the hail of gunfire that ensued, the 26-year-old Black woman was
killed.

The dramatic and sometimes conflicting accounts of the
March 13 raid are key to a case that has fueled nationwide protests
against police brutality and systemic racism. When police came through
the door using a battering ram, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker,
fired once. He acknowledges that he may not have heard police identify
themselves because of where he was in the apartment. If he’d heard them,
“it changes the whole situation because there’s nothing for us to be
scared of.”

The fear and confusion that played out after midnight
inside and outside Taylor’s Louisville home was detailed in 15 hours of
audio recordings made public in a rare release. While the recordings
added rich detail about what happened as police fired 32 shots in the
last moments of Taylor’s life, nothing on them appeared to change the
fundamental narrative that was previously made public.

The
recordings also do not include any discussion of potential criminal
action on the part of the officers who shot Taylor because Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron determined beforehand that they had acted in self-defense. As a result, he did not seek charges against police in her killing — a recommendation the grand jury followed.

Grand jury proceedings are typically kept secret, but a court ruled
that they should be made public after the jury’s decision last week
angered many in Louisville and around the country and set off renewed
protests. One of the jurors also sued to make the proceedings public.
The material released does not include juror deliberations or prosecutor
recommendations and statements, none of which were recorded, according
to Cameron’s office.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
said it will release its own assessment of how the evidence was
presented after a review of the recordings. Sherrilyn Ifill, the group’s
president, said that releasing the recordings “is a critical first
step.”

At Jefferson Square Park, where protesters outraged over
Taylor’s death have gathered for months, a small group gathered in a
mood far more subdued than the outcry that followed the grand jury’s
decision.

On the March night in question, police arrived after
midnight at Taylor’s apartment with a narcotics warrant to search the
home. She and her boyfriend were in bed. Within minutes, she had been
shot five times.

Though police had a “no-knock” warrant that
would have allowed them to burst in unannounced, they agreed it was
better to “give them a chance to answer the door,” said Louisville
police Lt. Shawn Hoover. Detective Myles Cosgrove said the officers had
been told to “use our maturity as investigators get into this house.”

In
a police interview played for the grand jury, Hoover said the officers
announced themselves as police and knocked three times. He estimated
they waited 45 seconds to a minute before going through the door.

Another officer said they waited as much as two minutes.

Walker
said he heard knocking, but that police did not respond to his and
Taylor’s repeated requests that whoever was at the door identify
themselves. He told police that he grabbed his gun, and they both got up
and walked toward the door.

“She’s yelling at the top of her lungs, and I am too at this point. No answer. No response. No nothing,” said Walker.

Police
said they used a battering ram to enter the apartment, hitting the door
three times before getting inside. Detective Michael Nobles said
officers made so much noise that an upstairs neighbor came outside.

Walker,
who has said he thought the police were intruders, fired once, hitting
detective Jonathan Mattingly in the leg as soon as he leaned inside the
apartment.

Mattingly said in testimony, some of which was previously released, that he fired his gun while falling on his backside.

Cosgrove
came through the door and saw Mattingly on the ground. In his interview
with investigators, he spoke to the confusion of the confrontation. He
told investigators that he thought he fired four or fewer shots, but the
evidence showed he fired 16 rounds, including the bullet that killed
Taylor.

Officer Brett Hankison, who has since been fired, told
investigators that he saw flashes from a gun coming from inside the
apartment and feared his fellow officers were “sitting ducks.” Hankinson
said he began shooting, and when gunfire inside the apartment
continued, moved to fire through a window. He fired 10 bullets.

Hankinson
was the only officer indicted by the grand jury, which charged him with
wanton endangerment for shooting into another home with people inside.
He has pleaded not guilty.

“What
I saw at the time was a figure in a shooting stance, and it looked as
if he was holding, he or she was holding, an AR-15 or a long gun, a
rifle,” said Hankison.

Walker was, in fact, using a handgun. He said he and Taylor both dropped to the ground when the officers returned fire.

“I’m scared to death,” Walker said, before it dawned on him that it was the police.

Walker
said he then looked at Taylor, who was bleeding. Seeking help he called
his mother, 911 and then Taylor’s mother. Walker told a 911 dispatcher:
“Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.”

While
Walker told police he did not hear officers identify themselves, he also
said he doubted he could have, considering the couple was at the
opposite end of a long hallway.

“If we knew who it was, that would have never happened,” Walker said.

But Hoover, the police lieutenant, said he believed Walker and Taylor “ambushed” the officers.

“They knew we were there. I mean, hell, the neighbors knew we were there,” he said.

Police
interviews with Taylor’s neighbors, however, didn’t clear up the
confusion. Two neighbors said they didn’t hear the police knocking. One
of them also said he was certain he didn’t hear police identify
themselves. Another man gave three differing accounts — in two of them
saying he heard officers identify themselves.

After the burst of
gunshots, the officers focused on the wounded Mattingly. No one else
entered Taylor’s apartment until a SWAT team arrived — even as she lay
bleeding.

A neighbor, Summer Dickerson, told investigators she
was jolted out of bed by the gunshots. Outside the apartment, she said,
an officer she recognized told her that “some drug-dealing girl shot at
the police.”

Walker initially told police that Taylor was the one who shot at them. He later said he was the one who fired the gun.

One law enforcement officer testified that no drugs were found in the apartment but that police ultimately never executed the search warrant.

Associated Press writers from around the country contributed to this report.