By: Katherine Wu
Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was murdered on March 13, 2020, after police stormed her residence in the middle of the night while executing a search warrant related to a narcotic trafficking investigation.
Former detective Joshua Jaynes, detective Kelly Goodlett, and sergeant Kyle Meany were accused of submitting a false statement to search Taylor's home and working together to create "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.
Brett Hankison, a former police officer who participated in the killing of Breonna Taylor, has been charged with two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, both of which are civil rights offenses.
This type of killing “happens far more often than people think,” said Joseph C. Patituce, a defense lawyer and former prosecutor in Ohio. “We are talking about a document that allows police to come into the homes of people, oftentimes minorities, at all times of night and day.”
Taylor isn’t the first person to be killed by police during a law enforcement operation. It has happened in Houston, Atlanta, and Baltimore. In each case, the officers fired shots and detectives lied to justify the search.
“It’s tragic when you see police falsify information to obtain a search warrant, and it is also dumb,” Ed Davis, the former Boston police commissioner said. “Every one of those search warrants can turn into a disaster.”
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/06/us/breonna-taylor-police-search-warrants.html