Justice Department has charged 4
current and former Louisville Metro
Police Department officers with federal
crimes related to Miss Taylor's death,
that Louisville police detective
Joshua James and Sergeant Kyle Meaney
drafted and approved what they knew
was a false affidavit to support a
search warrant for Miss Taylor's home.
That false affidavit,
set in motion events that led.
To Miss Taylor's death when other
LVMPD officers executed that warrant.
So that happened today.
4 current and former Louisville police
officers involved in that botched
2020 raid on Breonna Taylor's home,
now federally charged in connection
with her shooting death.
The four officers Brett Hankinson,
Joshua James, Kelly Goodlett,
and Kyle Meaney were arrested today.
Of course, her death sparked months
of protests and her Nine News legal
analyst Whitney trailer is with us now,
so let's talk about why this
became a federal case and why.
Why the feds are making these charges
right? Well, the state AG chose not to.
Put any charges forward and was
highly criticized for that.
And so now the DOJ started their
investigation into these civil rights claims,
saying essentially under 42 USC 1983.
Were they acting under color of state
law when they violated her rights?
They also found in their investigation
that the police had lied about the
note to get the no knock warrant,
and specifically they lied about they
had talked to a postal inspector who
said she was receiving packages.
At her home from her ex-boyfriend.
In reality, that wasn't the case.
She hadn't even been involved
with the boyfriend for two years,
so these things led to the no knock.
And of course the no knock is what led
to ultimately her being shot 8 times
and then they emphasized that she would
be alive today if if there hadn't been
this pattern and the fact that the
officers were actually able to get
together after the fact and kind of come
up with their story right,
it's it's really concerning that they
lied to get the no or these are the.
Allegations from the DOJ and
of course they haven't been
able to present a defense yet,
but the DOJ has done a thorough
investigation and they're still
investigating a pattern in practice.
That's a separate investigation
saying look is this whole?
Has this been going on?
Is this a long time systemic right?
And so coming as you pointed out them,
getting together afterwards to make
sure their story matched and they
could tell the investigators that that
certainly is going to support this.
You know, pattern and practice
because it appears this happens a lot.
It really brings into question the no.
The no knock warrant.
Yeah, and you talk about patterns and
practices and that's that's certainly one
thing that the the federal government,
the Department of Justice would look into.
But this case gets so much notoriety.
There were so many people
hyper focused on this case.
It's now been a couple of years.
But was this ever really or should
this have been seen or investigated
at the state level at the city level
before it even reached this level?
Absolutely, and This is why people
are really concerned, because if you,
if you did even a cursory investigation,
there were a lot of issues even on the
no knock how they before these lies
came out there were questions about
how they got it and why they got it.
There was a question if they announced
themselves and so the way it happened was,
really, you know, egregious.
They're playing playing clothes.
Officers they lied to the allegations that
they they fabricated the the the warrant.
Then they they you know bad around
the the door there in plain clothes
they don't announce themselves.
There's a question about whether
or not they did right.
The current boyfriend was there with a
legal weapon and fired a warning shot.
They in return shot 32 rounds,
8 of them hitting Brianna Taylor,
who obviously didn't even have a firearm.
So
well, it'll be interesting to see
how they they make their case.
And and if this happens in other
police jurisdictions down the road,
thank you Whitney.
Sure, we appreciate it.