LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Recent revelations about the search warrant that led to Breonna Taylor’s death have reopened old wounds in Louisville’s Black community and disrupted the city’s efforts to restore trust in the police department.
Former
Louisville officer Kelly Goodlett admitted in federal court that she and
another officer falsified information in the warrant. That confirmed to many,
including U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, that Taylor never should have
been visited by armed officers on March 13, 2020.
Protest
leaders who took to the streets of Kentucky’s largest city after she was
fatally shot by police say Goodlett’s confession confirms their suspicions that
Louisville police can’t be trusted and that systemic issues run deep. They say
officers abused demonstrators after the botched raid, and that her fatal
shooting is just one of many reasons why the community remains wary.
“What bothers me so incredibly is that so many
lives were lost because of this lie,” said Hannah Drake, a Louisville poet and
leader in a push for justice after Taylor’s death. “They don’t even understand
the far-reaching tentacles of what they did.”
More than
once during that long, hot summer, individual officers escalated rather than
calmed a situation.
Days before
a Black man was shot dead by a National Guard member in his restaurant’s
kitchen, an officer who wounded the man’s niece taunted demonstrators on social
media, daring them to challenge police. Another Louisville officer faces a
federal charge over hitting a kneeling protester in the back of the head with a
baton.
“We were
right to protest,” Louisville Urban League President Sadiqa Reynolds tweeted
shortly after Goodlett’s plea. “People are dead and lives upended because of a
pile of lies.”
Some
Louisville officers have been disciplined, fired, and even charged with crimes
for abusing protesters, in addition to the four officers now charged federally
in relation to the botched raid. But the problems can’t be blamed on a few
rogue officers, according to a lawsuit brought by Taylor’s white neighbors, who
were nearly hit by gunfire during the raid.
They accuse
the department of having a “warrior culture” and cultivating an “us vs. them”
mentality. In a lawsuit, the family of the man shot at the restaurant alleges
that police aggression during a curfew instigated his death.
Louisville is
working on numerous reforms, implementing a new 911 diversion program,
increasing leadership reviews of search warrant requests and improving officer
training. The city has outlawed “no knock” warrants, conducted an independent
audit and paid Taylor’s mother $12 million in a civil settlement. A new police
chief, Erika Shields, was hired in 2021.
Such reforms
have been implemented amid a continuing U.S. Department of Justice
investigation of LMPD’s policing practices, which could land at any moment.
The chief
called Taylor’s death “horrific,” and said in an interview with The Associated
Press that she welcomes the federal investigations, which led to charges
against Goodlett and the other officers. “I think we’re in an important place
that was necessary to get to, before we move on,” she said.
Mayor Greg
Fischer, whose 12-year run ends this year, said city officials turned the
probes over to state and federal officials “because the community rightfully
was saying LMPD should not be investigating LMPD, and I agree with that.”
Kentucky
Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s investigation then ended without any officers
being charged directly in Taylor’s death. It took federal prosecutors to
convict Goodlett — she pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted to helping
create a phony link between Taylor and a wanted drug dealer. Goodlett resigned
the day before her charges were announced in August and awaits sentencing next
month.
In August
court filings, federal prosecutors said another former officer, Joshua Jaynes,
inserted the crucial information into the warrant request that drew Taylor into
the narcotic squad’s investigation — claiming that a postal inspector had
verified that the drug dealer was receiving packages at Taylor’s apartment.
Goodlett and
Jaynes knew that was false, as did their sergeant, Kyle Meany, when he signed
off on the request, Garland said.
“Breonna Taylor should be alive today,”
Garland said.
Goodlett,
Jaynes and Meany were all fired, as was a fourth officer, Brett Hankison, who
faces federal charges for blindly firing into Taylor’s home through a side door
and window. He was exonerated on similar state charges earlier this year.
Jaynes and Meany are being tried together. That trial, along with Hankison’s,
is scheduled for next year. Goodlett is expected to testify against Jaynes.
Metro
Council President David James, a former police officer, said that to restore
trust, Louisville’s Black community “just wants the police to treat them the
same way they would treat people in another part of the city.”
No incident
highlighted the racial divide more than the fatal shooting of Black restaurant
owner David McAtee as police sought to enforce the city’s curfew in a
predominantly African American neighborhood far from the center of the Taylor
protests.
Just before
midnight on May 31, 2020, Louisville officers and Kentucky National Guard
members were sent to a gathering spot near McAtee’s YaYa’s BBQ “for a show of
force (and) intimidation,” McAtee’s family alleges in a lawsuit.
A few nights
earlier, officer Katie Crews had been photographed in a line of police as a
protester offered her a handful of flowers. Crews posted the image on social
media, writing that she hoped the protester was hurting from the pepper balls
she “got lit up with a little later on.”
“Come back
and get ya some more ole girl, I’ll be on the line again tonight,” Crews wrote.
When
officers marched toward McAtee’s restaurant, Crews escalated the tension by
firing non-lethal pepper balls at the crowd, an LMPD investigation found. Many
people rushed into McAtee’s kitchen, where his niece was shot in the neck by Crews
with the non-lethal rounds.
That
prompted McAtee to pull a pistol from his hip and fire a shot. Seeing that,
Crews and other officers switched to live rounds and McAtee, leaning out his
kitchen door, was fatally shot in the chest by a National Guard member. The
deadly force was found to be justified, but the police chief was fired by
Fischer because the Louisville officers involved had failed to turn on their
body cameras, just as they did during the Taylor raid.
Crews later
admitted that no one in the crowd had been disorderly. She was fired by Shields
in February. Now she faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of a federal
charge of using unreasonable force.
James, the
Metro Council president and former officer, groaned while recalling McAtee’s
death, saying he was saddened because he knew him and had eaten his food. The
“extremely unfortunate and tragic” shooting has stuck with him as an example of
bad policing, he said.
Drake, the
poet and activist, said more systemic changes are needed. In the meantime, she
said authorities should apologize for their treatment of protesters, and drop
any cases against people arrested for demonstrating that summer. Hundreds have
been cleared, but some remain criminally charged. Knowing it was all so
unnecessary only deepens the pain, she said.
“We could
have avoided all this,” Drake said. “And I think that’s where the pain comes
from — we were right!”