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Hours of grand jury proceedings were made public Friday (US time) in the case of the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by US police, a rare disclosure of such material.
The jury did not file criminal charges against the officers for his murder, which angered many in Louisville and across the country and sparked further protests.
A court ruled that the content of the proceedings, which is generally kept secret, must be disclosed.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, whose office led the investigation into police actions in the Taylor shooting, did not object to the file’s release. But on Wednesday, his office asked for a one-week extension to edit personal information on the material. The judge gave him two days.
Cameron, a Republican and the state’s first African-American attorney general, has acknowledged that he did not recommend homicide charges for the officers involved.
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Police used a narcotics warrant to break into Taylor’s Louisville apartment on March 13 and shot him after Taylor’s boyfriend shot them. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical worker, was shot five times. The police found no drugs there.
Cameron said that two officers who fired their guns, striking Taylor, were justified because Taylor’s boyfriend had shot them first. The groom has said that he thought someone was breaking in.
Darron Cummings / AP
For months, Taylor’s name has been a rallying cry for black activists who hoped that black women and their deaths at the hands of the police would finally receive the same attention that is given to cases involving the extrajudicial execution of black men. .
The grand jury charged fired officer Brett Hankison with three counts of unjustified danger for shooting at a neighboring apartment. No one was injured. He has pleaded not guilty. Cameron said there was no conclusive evidence that any of Hankison’s shots hit Taylor.
The audio recording of the jury proceedings will be added to Hankison’s public court file.
The protesters have taken to the streets to demand more responsibility in the case. The activists, Taylor’s family and one of the jurors called for the grand jury file to be released.
The release comes a day after the first woman to head the Louisiana Metro Police Department, Yvette Gentry, took over as acting head of the department.
“I know I’m acting,” Gentry said in a small ceremony broadcast on the department’s Facebook page. “But I represent something different to a lot of people by being the first woman to take this title, so I’m not going to put that aside.”
