Protests Erupt in Louisville After Cops Dodge Charges in Breonna Taylor Killing
LOUISVILLE—Just hours after three Louisville Metro Police officers dodged charges for the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in March, protesters took to the streets in outrage.
In a stunning decision, a grand jury on Wednesday indicted one of the officers, former detective Brett Hankison, with several counts of wanton endangerment. But the charges stemmed from the shots Hankison fired—during a “no-knock” warrant served at Taylor’s apartment—that hit or endangered people in other units.
In other words, the actual shots that killed the emergency medical technician, an icon of Black Lives Matter protests in recent months, were not deemed criminal. The two other officers, Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove—the cop who fired the shot that killed Taylor—were not charged at all in an action that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said “was justified to protect themselves.”
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