NAACP LDF releases report on Breonna Taylor case
Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron showed a pro-police bias in his presentation of the case to the grand jury, according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has released a report that revealed new findings in the Breonna Taylor case. The report entitled “Justice Denied: An Overview of the Grand Jury Proceedings In The Breonna Taylor Case” said that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron showed a pro-police bias in his presentation of the case to the grand jury.
On Sept. 23, jurors declined to charge two of the three officers in the Taylor raid which took place on March 31. Acting on a ‘no-knock’ search warrant, the officers entered Taylor’s residence after midnight. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, a legal gun owner, fired a warning shot at the officers coming into their apartment and they returned fire, killing Taylor.
Only one officer, Brett Hankinson, who was fired for not following proper police procedures in June, was charged. He was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for shooting blindly in to Taylor’s apartment building, thus endangering the other residents. That meant that none of the officers in the raid were found to be liable in Taylor’s death.
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NAACP LDF report said Cameron “did not make a fair and comprehensive presentation to the grand jury about the involved officers’ conduct that led to Ms. Taylor’s killing, but instead displayed an inappropriate bias in favor of the officers.”
The NAACP also said that Cameron did not provide grand jurors with video or audio evidence that was taken at the scene, nor did he explain why the evidence wasn’t made available. And perhaps most damning, the report said that the grand jury testimony that had a heavy impact on the trial, came from one witness, whose testimony was contrary to the accounts of multiple other witnesses.
In October, CNN reported that three grand jurors came forward anonymously to say they didn’t believe they were presented with enough information to fairly determine the facts of the case. One, who CNN identified as a white male on a call with the media, said that there was an “uproar” when jurors realized that no murder charges would be possible.
“Was justice was done? No, I feel that there was there’s quite a bit more that could have been done or should have been presented for us to deliberate on,” said grand juror 1, the white male.
A second grand juror, a Black male, expressed his feelings about the proceedings, which line up with the findings of the report.
“We were open the whole time to listen to everything they presented, and it would have been nice if they had presented every charge, but they only presented those three charges, ” said the second grand juror.
The third juror concured that they had no other charges, aside from wanton endangerment, to consider.
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The report concluded by requesting, in line with the wishes of Taylor’s family, that another grand jury be convened so as to include other charges for consideration. The report recommends that the governor put into law the appointment of a special prosecutor in cases involving “potential criminal wrongdoing” by law enforcement to avoid any possibility of partiality in those cases.
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