These are the people at the center of the Breonna Taylor case
Now one of the officers involved in the shooting is facing felony charges, though protesters believe they are not sufficient.
Taylor was killed in March when police officers came to her door and attempted to serve a warrant. State and federal authorities have investigated the incident for months.
Breonna Taylor
Breonna Taylor
Taylor, 26, was an aspiring nurse. At the time of her death, she had been working as a certified emergency medical technician.
Her aunt, Bianca Austin, described Taylor as a “spunky, goofy little kid” who blossomed into a hard-working, goal-oriented young woman who placed an emphasis on family.
“She just was a fun person to be around,” Austin said. “She’s going to be truly, definitely be missed.”
People across the country have repeated Taylor’s name loudly and often; in the streets and online, as they demand justice in her death. Like the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Taylor’s death has fueled ongoing nationwide conversations over racial injustice and police brutality.
Her boyfriend
Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker
Walker told investigators he heard banging at the door and assumed it was Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover. Taylor, who had awoken, shouted, “Who is it?” but Walker said there was no response.
He said he and Taylor scrambled to get dressed and that he grabbed his gun, which his attorney has said he legally owns. He said both he and Taylor were yelling, “Who is it?” but received no response.
As they made their way toward the front door, Walker said, the door flew off its hinges.
“So I just let off one shot,” he said. “I still can’t see who it is or anything.”
Police then returned fire, killing Taylor. There is no police body camera video of what transpired in the moments after officers broke through Taylor’s door. Police said they identified themselves and didn’t knock the door off its hinges but did use a battering ram to open the door.
Her ex-boyfriend
Jamarcus Glover in a Louisville Metro Police Department photo.
Glover was arrested elsewhere during a series of raids that day but was released on bail.
Taylor’s family and their attorney have maintained that she was not involved in her ex-boyfriend’s alleged drug deals.
“The police are trying to make it out to be my fault and turning the whole community out here making it look like I brought this to Breonna’s door,” Glover told the newspaper. “There was nothing never there or anything ever there, and at the end of the day, they went about it the wrong way and lied on that search warrant and shot that girl out there.”
3 Louisville police officers
Louisville police officers Myles Cosgrove, Brett Hankison and Jonathan Mattingly. Hankison was fired by Louisville’s police chief for his role in the shooting.
They have been identified as Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Detective Myles Cosgrove and now former Detective Brett Hankison.
The other officers were not charged.
Mattingly and Cosgrove have been placed on administrative reassignment. Hankison is appealing his termination.
According to a news release from the attorney general, state police could not identify which officer fired the shot that killed Taylor, but FBI analysts determined it was a bullet from Cosgrove’s gun.
None of the officers wore body cameras, the police department said, because they were plainclothes narcotics officers.
Mattingly was the first to enter Taylor’s apartment. He could make out a man and a woman in the darkened hallway, he told investigators, and the man had a gun in his hand.
“I remember seeing the barrel,” Mattingly said in a statement.
A bullet then struck Mattingly’s leg, puncturing his femoral artery and leading the officers to return fire, police said. Mattingly said he fired six times.
Mattingly’s attorney, Todd McMurtry, has defended his client’s conduct saying the officer “was following orders of superior officers, was not involved in the planning process of the arrest, and at all times followed established police procedures.”
In a mass email to the department, Mattingly defended his actions and slammed the city’s leadership.
“I know we did the legal, moral and ethical thing that night,” Mattingly wrote in the email. “It’s sad how the good guys are demonized, and criminals are canonized.”
The Kentucky attorney general
Daniel Cameron is the Attorney General of Kentucky. He’s handling the investigation into Taylor’s death.
He was named as a special prosecutor in the case in May after Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine cited a conflict of interest.
“Even as anarchists mindlessly tear up American cities while attacking police and innocent bystanders, we Republicans do recognize those who work in good faith towards peace, justice and equality,” he said. “In fact, it was Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, a future Republican president, who said democracy is a system that recognizes the equality of humans before the law.”
Cameron, the first Republican to be elected Kentucky attorney general in seven decades, is a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He served as McConnell’s general counsel from 2015 to 2017, a role that included leading Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation process.
