An internal investigation conducted by two members of the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Professional Standard Unit found that officers should not have fired into Breonna Taylor’s apartment last March.
According to documents obtained by ABC News, Sgt. Andrew Meyer and Lt. Jeff Artman said the three officers who carried out the botched raid should’ve held their fire after Breonna’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot.
“They took a total of thirty-two shots, when the provided circumstances made it unsafe to take a single shot. This is how the wrong person was shot and killed,” Meyer wrote.
Walker has maintained that the officers did not announce themselves before entering the apartment, and the shot he fired was in self-defense.
The report says officers Jonathan Mattingly, Myles Cosgrove, and Brett Hankison violated department policy when they opened fire without considering hitting someone who was not a threat, the outlet reported. Mattingly, who fatally shot Taylor who was sleeping at the time of the raid, “should not have taken the shot” at Walker since Walker wasn’t an isolated target.
This report’s assessment of the officer’s conduct differs from Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron who said the officers’ shots were justified since Walker fired a shot.
“Had the officers did as they were trained, they would have retreated,” Lonita Baker, an attorney representing Taylor’s family told WHAS-TV. “According to this investigator, it didn’t justify any shots because they couldn’t assess the threat.”
Hankison and Cosgrove were terminated from the police department for violating policy. Of the three officers, only Hankison was charged in connection with the deadly raid, though not for killing Breonna, for the bullets that entered neighboring apartments.
Mattingly recently announced his retirement and book deal related to the Taylor's killing.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland launched a federal probe into LMPD's policing practices late last month.
Photo: Getty Images