According to several sources, the FBI has arrested four current and former Louisville Metro Police officers who were engaged in the tragic raid that murdered 26-year-old Breonna Taylor.
Former detectives Brett Hankison and Joshua Jaynes, as well as Detective Kelly Hanna Goodlett and Sgt. Kyle Meany, were arrested Thursday morning.
The arrests were verified by the Department of Justice during a press conference held Thursday morning, during which US Attorney General Merrick Garland expounded on the charges. They include two counts of civil rights violation against Hankison for firing ten rounds through a window and glass door along the side of Taylor’s residence.
The three other officers have been charged with conspiracy for violating Taylor’s Fourth Amendment rights as a result of their actions in creating and filing a fake affidavit used to gain a search warrant for Taylor’s residence in a drug-related investigation.
No police have been charged directly in Taylor’s death, including the cop who shot her, Myles Cosgrove, despite the fact that he was fired 9 months after the deadly raid.
Garland stated on Thursday, “Breonna Taylor should be alive today.”
Hankison was not involved in the initial inquiry that led to the search warrant on Taylor’s apartment, but he was crucial in carrying out the warrant during which she was slain.
He was fired in the summer of 2020 for “extreme indifference to the value of human life,” according to the department, and subsequently charged by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office on three counts of wanton endangerment for rounds that went into the apartment of one of Taylor’s neighbours. Hankison was found not guilty earlier this year.
The charges against the three other officers include not only fabricating information but also attempting to cover up after the fact. According to the DOJ, Jaynes and Goodlett met in a garage in May 2020, two months after Taylor’s death, and agreed to tell investigators a fake tale.
Jaynes, who was in charge of completing the warrant, was fired by the Louisville Metro Police Department in 2020 after it was discovered that he had lied in the affidavit. Jaynes reported that he had confirmed with the postal inspector that Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, a suspected drug dealer and the principal subject of the police investigation, was getting suspicious items at her home. However, both the postal inspector and Jaynes’ coworkers denied that claim.
Police were aware that there could be another person — and a gun — at Breonna Taylor’s home.
The arrest of Jaynes was first reported by local station WDRB on Thursday morning.
Goodlett, who assisted in obtaining the warrant and was part of the small team that headed the inquiry, has been on leave since early 2021, when an investigation was launched into charges that she and several other officers threw drinks at Louisville people from police vehicles.
Meany, the sergeant in command of Goodlett and Jaynes’ squad, was in charge of supervising the investigation, which included reviewing affidavits and search warrants presented by his team.
The charges, according to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, are independent from the DOJ’s ongoing investigation into whether the Louisville Metro Police Department has “patterns and practices” of violating citizens’ rights.