Felony charges dismissed against 2 former Louisville officers charged in the Breonna Taylor raid
CNN
A federal judge dismissed felony charges Thursday against two former Louisville Metro Police Department detectives who worked on the search warrant in the deadly raid on Breonna Taylor’s home.
A federal judge dismissed felony charges Thursday against two former Louisville Metro Police Department detectives who worked on the search warrant in the deadly raid on Breonna Taylor’s home. Motions to dismiss other charges were denied. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was shot and killed in her apartment during a flawed forced-entry raid in the early hours of March 13, 2020. Taylor, along with Atatiana Jefferson and Sonya Massey, were among a group of Black women killed in their own homes by law enforcement in recent years – a group that continues to expand. Louisville detective Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany were federally charged in 2022 with submitting a false affidavit to search Taylor’s home ahead of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department’s raid, then working together to create a “false cover story in an attempt to escape responsibility for their roles in preparing the warrant affidavit that contained false information,” according to court documents. The charges carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. US District Court Judge Charles Simpson ruled Thursday that the decision by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, to fire his gun when officers burst into the home was “the legal cause of Taylor’s death” – rather than warrantless entry, according to court documents. After Walker fired the shot, thinking the officers were intruders, a volley of gunfire came from police, and Taylor was shot multiple times. “There is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death,” the court ruled.
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