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The celebration was short-lived for two former Kentucky cops recently cleared of felony charges in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor — only to be indicted again by the U.S. Department of Justice this week.
Now former Louisville Police Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany are once again facing life in prison if convicted on the new charges. Neither cop was present during the raid but are accused of falsifying the warrant that led to the raid on March 12, 2020, resulting in her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, firing a shot at the intruders.
Louisville police officers responded by firing 22 rounds, killing Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman with no criminal record who worked as an emergency room technician. Police arrested Walker on charges of assault and attempted murder of a police officer, but the charges were dismissed the following year.
Police claimed they had announced themselves before using a battering ram to break into the home, but Walker and neighbors say they heard no warning. Announcing themselves prior to executing a no-knock raid defeats the purpose of a no-knock raid, which is to surprise the individuals inside the home and explain why they conducted the raid after midnight.
The shooting led to nationwide protests and calls for police reform and eventually criminal charges against the officers in August 2022.
But in August, U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson dismissed the felony charges against the two former cops, laying the blame on her boyfriend because he fired a single shot upon hearing the cops breaking into her home, striking an officer in the leg.
“There is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death. As a result, the issue becomes whether the law deems K.W.’s decision to shoot first to supersede the warrantless entry such that his conduct became the proximate, or legal, cause of Taylor’s death,” Simpson wrote in his ruling.
However, the new indictment filed on Tuesday points out that Kentucky is a “stand your ground” state, allowing citizens to “fire weapons in self-defense, without a duty to retreat, if they reasonably perceived a threat of great bodily hard or a felony involving use of force.”
The indictment also points out that Walker possessed a concealed weapons permit and legally owned the gun he fired.
New Details
The new indictment contains more details than the initial indictment from 2022, including the claim that Sgt. Meany was conducting surveillance on Taylor’s home the day before the shooting and noticed Walker’s car parked in her driveway.
He then ran a background search on Walker and discovered he was a legal gun owner with a concealed weapons permit. The sergeant also discovered that Walker had been living in Taylor’s home since at least 2019, the year before the shooting.
But none of that information was included in the warrant, the indictment states.
Even more damning is the claim that Mealy was present during the briefing before the raid but neglected to inform the officers who were going to conduct the raid there would likely be an armed man inside the home.
Instead, Mealy told the officers that Taylor was a “soft target” who was not even suspected of committing any crime and that their main priority was to gather documents and other evidence against a suspected drug dealer named Jamarcus Glover, who had dated Taylor in the past.
“Kyle Meany did not disclose this critical officer-safety information to the officers who were preparing to execute the warrant that night, and he did not describe K.W.’s car to them so they could determine if K.W. was likely at the residence when they executed the warrant,” the indictment states.
“According to officers known to the Grand Jury, who helped execute the Springfield Drive warrant, Kyle Meany’s failure to disclose the information to both the officers executing the warrant and the people inside Taylor’s home because it prevented the executing officers from accurately accounting for the risk of encountering an armed person and adjusting their tactics to reduce the likelihood that they would exchange gunfire.”
The indictment also accuses Detective Jayne of lying on the warrant by claiming he had observed Glover making “frequent trips” from his home to Taylor’s home when, in fact, he only observed Glover at the house on one occasion two months prior to the raid.
Jayne also claimed in the warrant that he “verified through a U.S. postal inspector that [J.G.] has been receiving packages” at Taylor’s home, but that was another lie that was confirmed when the postal inspector told investigators “there was no record of [J.G] receiving packages at Taylor’s address.”
The indictment accuses the two former cops of deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy and falsification of records in a federal investigation.
The most serious charge is the deprivation of rights under color of law, which the Department of Justice says “is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.”
Taylor’s family received a $12 million settlement in 2020, and Walker received a $2 million settlement in 2022.
“We are still here waiting on court dates and convictions. Imagine that. Breonna, you deserve so much more from the crooked system that has given you,” Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, wrote on Instagram.
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