Louisville police union president says cops ‘were justified’ in Breonna Taylor shooting
During a new interview, the Louisville police union president declared his belief that the cops had reason to pull the trigger in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor
Louisville police union president Ryan Nichols sat down with Gayle King for an interview about Breonna Taylor’s shooting death.
“A tragedy did, in fact, happen. A police officer was critically injured, a young woman was fatally injured. And, you know, the long, thorough investigation ensued … and that’s the process that should happen,” Nichols said in an interview that aired Thursday.
During the conversation, he addressed the different aspects of the controversial case including conflicting police reports, and the story shared by Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker. King asked Nichols about the police responding to Walker’s one warning shot with 32 of their own. The police union president responded that his officers did the correct thing.
“So I do believe that the officers were definitely justified in returning fire,” he remarked.
Nichols continued, “Well, in a situation like that when you return fire to stop a threat, typically you may not be aware of how many rounds someone else is firing, how many other officers are firing. And perhaps, you may not have an accurate count of the rounds you fired in a high-stress situation like that.”
Read More: Black girls more likely to be arrested than the police who murdered Breonna Taylor
Nichols also responded to allegations of a cover-up by Louisville Police Department, a theory presented by Walker’s legal team.
“I don’t believe there’s a cover-up of anything that occurred. … Can I definitely say affirmatively that no mistakes on anything were made? Obviously not. But I don’t believe that there was any type of cover-up. And if there was, that that would definitely be found out by the many entities that are conducting these investigations,” the officer said.
During the interview, he also stated that he believes race was not a factor.
“No, I don’t think this occurred as a result of any type of racial issue or this was determined by race somehow,” he said. “I think we’re a very diverse department… We try to stay up with the national best practices.”
Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, has filed documents to have a new independent prosecutor to review the case. theGrio reported she is asking the Kentucky Prosecutors Advisory Council to start the process to “restore the confidence in the grand jury process.”
The grand jury did not indict any of the officers involved with the shooting last month. Former Louisville Metropolitan Police Officer Brett Hankison was charged with wanton endangerment for firing bullets into a neighboring apartment. Members of the grand jury have spoken publicly about the case and said murder charges were not presented.
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