LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It took Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron four months to put together the Breonna Taylor case that culminated with last week’s grand jury indictments.
It’s taken less than a week for it to be picked apart.
Evidence leaks have raised questions about the evidence Cameron’s office relied on in its presentation to the grand jury. He has been forced by a judge to release the recording of that proceeding.
And Monday night, a grand juror took the extraordinary step of making a motion to reveal the grand jury proceedings and allow jurors who wish to to speak publicly about which charges were presented — and which weren’t.
“I was hopeful that whatever the grand jury decided, that people on every side of this matter would have confidence that things were done correctly and we could move forward as a community,” said Louisville attorney Scott. C. Cox.
“It just doesn’t look like that’s happened.”
It’s a stunningly quick unraveling for one of the most closely watched investigations in the nation, and it has forced the rookie attorney general to release more information than he intended last week when he cast the investigation as the “truth” without releasing supporting evidence.
“In our system, criminal justice isn’t the quest for revenge. It’s the quest for truth, evidence and facts, and the use of that truth as we fairly apply our laws,” Cameron said. “Our reaction to the truth today says what kind of society we want to be. Do we really want the truth, or do we want a truth that fits our narrative?”
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In days since, questions, concerns and public pressure made clear that people would not accept Cameron’s truth without proof, prompting Cameron to issue a statement Monday night saying he would comply with Judge Ann Bailey Smith’s order and file the recording in the criminal case by noon Wednesday.
“Once the public listens to the recording, they will see that over the course of 2 ½ days, our team presented a thorough and complete case to the Grand Jury,” Cameron said.
Cameron then filed a motion asking for a one week delay in the release of the grand jury recordings, citing the need to protect the personal information of witnesses in the proceeding.
More: Kentucky AG seeks one week delay in release of Breonna Taylor grand jury recordings
He went on to reveal something he’d previously declined to discuss, acknowledging that the “only charge recommended” by his office was wanton endangerment.
Here’s how his approach to the case started to falter:
Questions about evidence go unanswered
Cameron’s key investigative findings, some of which have been long-debated, were presented as fact in his nationally televised press conference Sept. 23.
Among them:
Louisville Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove were “justified in the return of deadly fire” after they were fired upon by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, and that justification prevented his office from pursuing criminal charges in her death.
Officers announced their presence at Taylor’s door, and a civilian witness corroborated officers’ statements.
Mattingly’s injury was not the result of “friendly fire.”
Each of those statements, however, has been challenged by attorneys and leaked evidence, putting pressure on officials to release more proof.
For example, defense attorneys not involved in the case have pointed out that Kentucky’s self-defense laws have an exception that removes the right of protection from a person who “acts wantonly or is reckless in defending himself.”
That’s led some to question whether Mattingly and Cosgrove, who Cameron said shot Taylor, should have been charged in her death.
“They are ineligible to claim self-defense as a justification of killing bystander Breonna, particularly since Mattingly knew it was the male (her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker) who had the gun,” criminal defense lawyer Tricia Lister wrote on Facebook. “He has no justification for shooting bystander Breonna, thus he can be prosecuted for her death. Had he shot (W)alker, the story would be different, of course.”
Other attorneys, however, have said Cosgrove and Mattingly did have the right to return fire and that Taylor’s death was a tragic mistake, not a crime.
Cameron said during the press conference that his investigation showed, “and the grand jury agreed,” that officers were justified in returning fire.
But it now appears that question wasn’t posed to the grand jury.
Experts: Kentucky’s self-defense laws negated possible homicide charges in Breonna Taylor’s death
Ballistics report challenges narrative
Additionally, a Kentucky State Police ballistics report obtained by The Louisville Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, didn’t support Cameron’s statement that “friendly fire” from another officer could be ruled out as a cause of Mattingly’s injury.
Cameron said Hankison was eliminated as the shooter because the officers were carrying .40-caliber handguns, while Walker had a 9 mm.
The ballistics report, however, said “due to limited markings of comparative value,” the 9 mm bullet that hit and exited Mattingly was neither “identified nor eliminated as having been fired” from Walker’s gun.
And Walker’s attorney, Steve Romines, said Hankison also was issued a 9 mm.
More: Ballistics report doesn’t support Kentucky AG’s claim that Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend shot cop
But Mattingly’s attorney, Kent Wicker, said it is preposterous that anyone else than Walker shot his client.
“Kenneth Walker gave a statement in which (he) admitted to shooting his 9 mm handgun at the very doorway where Sgt. Mattingly was standing,” Wicker said. “Sgt. Mattingly saw Kenneth Walker with his gun raised in a shooting stance, and he felt the bullet in his thigh.”
He added that while Hankison had been issued a 9 mm handgun from the LMPD in the past, the notion that he “fired a host of shots from his .40 caliber handgun, then changed guns and shot one bullet from his 9 mm gun that struck Sgt. Mattingly is a ridiculous argument not grounded in fact or reality.”
Key witness changed the story
Another finding from Cameron that’s been thrust into controversy is his statement that a man at Taylor’s apartment complex corroborated officers’ statements that they knocked, conclusively meaning they had.
“Evidence shows that officers both knocked and announced their presence at the apartment,” Cameron said. “The officers’ statement about their announcement are corroborated by an independent witness who was near in proximity to Apartment 4.”
What he didn’t say Wednesday, however, was that the witness initially said the exact opposite to investigators.
“No, nobody identifies themself,” Aaron Sarpee told investigators on March 21, according to investigative documents obtained by The Louisville Courier-Journal and first reported by VICE News.
In May, Sarpee changed his story after investigators circled back to him. Then, he said he’d heard officers knock and announce, “This is the cops.”
In a police interview that’s since been made public, Mattingly’s description of how officers were identifying themselves doesn’t align exactly with the witness’ account.
Mattingly recalls that he was saying, “Police! Please come to the door! Police! We have a search warrant.”
The witness, however, told investigators he heard officers knocking and saying, ‘this is the cops,'” police wrote in an investigative summary.
It’s not clear at this point whether the grand jury was presented with the information about the juror’s previous statements.
At a Friday press conference, attorney Benjamin Crump challenged Cameron’s statement, questioning whether he had allowed that neighbor to testify to the grand jury, even though he said he didn’t hear them knock and announce.
“Is this the only person out of her apartment complex that he allowed to testify before the grand jury?” Crump said. “That doesn’t seem fair. That doesn’t seem like you’re fighting for Breonna.”
The witnesses who did testify before the grand jury have not been made public.
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Judge orders release in a criminal case
In Cameron’s statement Monday night, he stated he would release the grand jury recording but noted that grand jury proceedings are intended to be secret: “It’s apparent that the public interest, in this case, isn’t going to allow that to happen.”
He said that, despite “ethical” concerns about how the release would taint the jury pool or compromise the ongoing federal investigation, he would comply with the judge’s order.
Earlier Monday, at Hankison’s arraignment in which he entered a not guilty plea, the judge ordered that “all discovery documents shall be filed in the court file and not just between parties.”
“Additionally, the recording of the grand jury proceedings shall be filed in the court file by noon of Wednesday this week,” Smith said.
Observers say they’re hopeful the court filings will answer those lingering questions surrounding the Taylor case.
“Everybody’s going to get to listen for themselves,” Gov. Andy Beshear said of the judge’s ruling. “We’ll know exactly what was presented and then we can have this conversation based on direct facts.”
Cameron’s experience again in the spotlight
The fallout over Cameron’s handling of the Taylor case has once again put a spotlight on his qualifications for the job of the state attorney general — something that had been scrutinized in the runup to his historic election win.
Licensed to practice law since 2011, he spent two years as a federal judge’s law clerk and two years as legal counsel for his mentor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, before joining the prominent Kentucky law firm of Frost Brown Todd.
“We can’t find one instance of Cameron having prosecuted a case — criminal or civil,” his opponent, Greg Stumbo, said during the lead-up to last year’s election, which Cameron easily won by more than 200,000 votes.
Cameron’s experience, or lack thereof, was again criticized earlier this month when his name surfaced among President Donald Trump’s list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees.
“He had no expertise to say he’d be a great attorney general,” said Shannon Ragland, publisher of the Kentucky Trial Court Review. “That he would screw up (the Taylor case) is somewhat predictable. I don’t know if we knew it would be this bad.”
Others, though, are quick to point out that the prosecutors Cameron assigned to investigate Taylor’s death have decades of experience and are highly respected by their peers.
“The job of the attorney general in an office that size in a state as big as Kentucky is to have the very best assistants you can rely on run these grand jury investigations and proceedings,” said Cox, who worked with one of the lead prosecutors.
