The recorded interviews show questioner ‘coaching’ officer who led botched raid and helping the witness with his responses.
Newly released audio recordings from the investigation into the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville Police shed light on the events leading up to the deadly raid.
Taylor, 26, died on March 13 during a botched drug raid that she was not the target of. The aspiring nurse, who worked at two local hospitals, was shot as police were serving a ‘no-knock warrant’ related to a narcotics investigation, theGrio previously reported.
The raid was carried out by Sgt Jonathan Mattingly, Detectives Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove. Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, called 911 to report someone was breaking into their apartment. As police fired on the couple, Walker returned fire and Taylor was shot eight times by police. She died at the scene.
Read More: Breonna Taylor’s family claims no aid was offered after she was fatally shot
In an interview after the tragedy, Mattingly insists cops knocked on the door for 45 seconds and shouted ‘Police, search warrant!’
Walker maintains, however, they never identified themselves as police.
“It’s the middle of the night. Somebody is beating on the door and not saying who they are … What are you going to do?” he told investigators, NBC News reported Thursday.
“I know y’all have guns at home. You’re going to grab it and be cautious like, ‘Okay, so what’s going on?”
“You’re creeping towards (the door) … ‘Who is it? Who is it?’ You don’t know who it is and then the door flies open?”
When the shooting stopped, Walker saw Taylor on her stomach in the hallway.
“I’m yelling for help,” he recalls, still unware that the shooters were cops because “nobody was, like, rushing in after all this happened.”
Read More: Lawyers allege Breonna Taylor’s house was targeted because of gentrification plan
Walker was charged with first-degree assault and attempted murder of a police officer after Mattingly was shot in the leg during the raid.
The attempted murder charge was ultimately dropped.
The recordings reveal that a plainclothes officer confronted Walker after the fatal shooting of his girlfriend and told him there had been a “misunderstanding.”
“Why’d he say to me that there was a misunderstanding?” Walker asked during his police interview just hours after the raid.
“I don’t know,” Sgt. Amanda Seelye, a member of the Louisville department’s Public Integrity Unit, answered. “That’s some new information for us as well.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Walker replied. “They figured out something. They did something wrong.”
The Interviews reveal the cops realized that they had indeed screwed up.
The audio also highlights how investigators gave Sgt.Mattingly nearly two weeks to prep for his interview, during which he was accompanied by an attorney, while Walker was questioned within a day after his girlfriend was executed by Louisville law enforcement.
Walker spoke to police after he was “encouraged” to waive his Miranda Rights.
Sgt Jason Vance, who questioned Mattingly, said the cops’ approach to the raid was “the most passive way in.”
The recorded interviews reportedly show Vance was sympathetic to the officers, and ‘led’ the witness during the interrogation. At times, he appeared to be helping Mattingly with his responses.
At one point, he said the cop had ‘rightfully’ returned fire.
None of the police officers have been charged in Breonna Taylor’s death.
Family attorney Ben Crump noted on Twitter, “Audio of #KennyWalker and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly clearly reveal that there has been a CONSPIRACY to cover up #BreonnaTaylor’s killing since day one!!,” he wrote,
“ALL the officers involved need to be FIRED and CHARGED with murder,” Crump added.
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