The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday (4) the indictment of four officers and former officers for the 2020 shooting death of Breonna Taylor in a police raid on her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. . The case has become one of the symbols of the anti-racist movement and against police violence in the US.
Former Louisville Metropolitan Police Department detective Joshua Jayes and Sergeant Kyle Meany have been charged with civil rights crimes and obstruction of justice for using false information to obtain the search warrant that supported the operation that killed Breonna. Taylor.
Detective Kyle Goodlett was accused of conspiring with Jaynes to falsify the warrant and then cover up the forgery. Former detective Brett Hankinson was charged with civil rights crimes for alleged excessive use of force.
As a disciplinary measure, amid popular protests, Jaynes was fired from the force in December 2020, alongside Detective Myles Cosgrove, one of the officers who shot Breonna.
“Breonna Taylor was supposed to be alive today,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in announcing the indictments. “The Department of Justice is committed to upholding and protecting the civil rights of all people in this country.”
“Today was a big step towards justice,” said lawyers for Taylor’s family.
The state court had only charged Hankinson, not with the young woman’s death, but with having “put her in danger” by shooting through a wall. In March of this year, he was eventually acquitted, drawing the ire of anti-racism activists.
On March 13, 2020, three Louisville police officers broke into the home of Breonna Taylor, 26, in the middle of the night as part of a drug dealing investigation against an ex-boyfriend of hers.
His then-partner, Kenneth Walker, who was not the target of the raid, believed the agents to be thieves and fired a gun he legally owned.
The police responded, and Breonna was hit by about 20 rounds.
The agents had a warrant called “no knock,” which authorized them to break down the door without warning. They claim they still announced their presence – Walker denies it.
The death of Breonna Taylor gained backlash during the massive anti-racism demonstrations that shook the US following the death of George Floyd, a 40-year-old black man, asphyxiated by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020.
The acts spread to dozens of American cities and reached other countries.
