Newly released bodycam footage shows the moment Louisville cops told SWAT team officers they believed Breonna Taylor was dead but said they weren’t ‘rushing in to check’, moments before they cleared her apartment as she lay motionless on the floor.
The videos were included in a trove of investigative documents released by the police department on Wednesday following a controversial grand jury ruling that saw no officers directly charged with Taylor’s death.
The footage shows the moment officers find Taylor pulseless in the hallway after she was killed in a hail of bullets on March 13, when her boyfriend Kenneth Walker and cops exchanged fire in a drug raid gone wrong.
As the SWAT team prepares to enter the apartment, an officer is heard briefing the squad on the incident and says Taylor was allegedly the one shooting and was ‘down’ inside.
At the time, Walker, who had actually fired at police first, was already in police custody meaning Taylor’s bullet-riddled body was inside the apartment alone.
‘He [Walker] said she’s down in there. He said she’s dead, she’s down – but we weren’t rushing in there to check,’ the cop tells Sergeant Brandon Hogan.
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The footage shows the moment officers find Taylor pulseless in the hallway after she was killed in a hail of bullets on March 13, when her boyfriend Kenneth Walker and cops exchanged fire in a drug raid gone wrong
One of the officers is heard asking, ‘Ma’am, can you hear us?’ to her lifeless body. The team then hovers over Taylor as one of the cops checks her pulse
Members of the team were seen inspecting the rooms of the apartment as a group of cops examined Taylor’s lifeless body
Breonna’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker has maintained that the officers did not identify themselves as police when they arrived at the apartment
‘We just literally hit the door and there was shooting. We announced, we waited,’ he adds.
The team of officers then make their way inside and survey all the areas of the apartment to ensure it is secure.
The cops are seen inspecting the rooms of the home for several minutes while Taylor’s body lies on the floor in the hallway, untouched.
As the officers examine her bedroom, one of the cops tells the team: ‘We still gotta check the bed.’
‘Check her. We’ve gotta check her, make sure she’s good,’ Sergeant Hogan responds, referring to Taylor.
He is then heard asking, ‘Ma’am, can you hear us?’ to her lifeless body. The team then hovers over Taylor as one of the cops checks her pulse.
The officers eventually determine she’s ‘done’ and prepare to head out.
‘Let’s go ahead and move out. Alright, she’s done. We’ll keep one person here on her. She’s done,’ he says.
As the SWAT team prepares to enter the apartment, an officer is heard briefing the squad on the incident and says Taylor was allegedly the one shooting and was ‘down’ inside
At the time, Walker, who had actually fired at police first, was already in police custody meaning Taylor’s bullet-riddled body was inside the apartment (pictured) alone
In an interview with the police department’s Public Integrity Unit months after the shooting, a member of the SWAT team told investigators they refrained from touching Taylor’s body and let the medical unit take care of her.
‘We just kind of pulled security on her meaning we’re just watching her and we know that we have EMS right outside the scene. So rather than us mess with her, we’re not medical professionals in anyway, we called for our temps to come up and then I believe he kind of lifted her up and he checked her pulse and looked to see where her injuries were,’ Sergeant Joel Casse said.
‘And I do remember him saying she had multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. No sign of a pulse and he said: “Yeah, you know, she’s – she’s gone”.’
Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend told police they were ‘scared to the death’ when they heard banging on the door because they thought it was her drug-dealing ex
The new documents also reveal that police insisted that they knocked and announced themselves, but that Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker said that they only heard the knocking, and did not hear police identify themselves.
Walker said the couple was ‘scared to death’ because they feared it was her drug-dealing ex-boyfriend. He opened fire down a hallway as the door was breached, striking one officer in the leg, and cops returned fire, killing Taylor.
The raid unfolded as part of a series of simultaneous raids on multiple locations associated with Taylor’s ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover, a suspected drug trafficker.
Breonna Taylor and boyfriend Kenneth Walker were sleeping in their Louisville apartment in the early hours of March 13, when police officers executed a ‘no-knock warrant’ and opened fire
Gouge marks from bullets are seen in Taylor’s home after cops fired 32 rounds
This Glock 9mm was recovered under the bed inside the apartment, where Walker said that he kicked it after opening fire on the search warrant team
Cops believed Taylor’s home was the ‘money house’ where Glover ‘housed the dope,’ the new documents state, but no significant amounts of drugs or money were found there – and investigators later raised questions about the evidence used to tie Glover to Taylor’s home.
Taylor’s name came up in the drug case at least in part because she had posted bail a few times from 2017 to January 2020 for Glover and another defendant, Darreal Forest, in amounts that went as high as $5,000, according to the police files released on Wednesday.
Taylor’s apartment was considered a ‘soft target’ by police conducting the raid, and they believed she was home alone. Walker, a licensed gun owner, was not expected to be there and his relationship with Taylor appears to have been unknown to police.
In the early hours of March 13, Louisville police officers entered apartment 4 of 3003 Springfield Drive, firing 32 times. Breonna Taylor was shot six times, but only one was determined to be fatal
The documents reveal that the cops executing the raid decided to knock and announce themselves, despite having a ‘no-knock’ warrant, because they considered the location to be low-risk.
Walker, believing it was an intruder, shot at the officers, striking Sergeant Jon Mattingly in the leg, prompting them to return fire and kill Taylor in a hail of bullets.
He was charged with attempted murder, however those charges were later dropped.
Walker has maintained that the officers did not identify themselves as police when they arrived at the apartment.
During his interview with investigators from the Public Integrity Unit, he said the couple were awoken after they heard a ‘loud thud.’
He did not mention Glover by name but said he thought it may have been a ‘guy’ Taylor was on and off with.
‘It scared her [Breonna] to death. Me too, like who is that. I was honestly thinkin’ – because we been on and off together for like, seven years, or whatever… there was a guy that she was messin’ with or whatever throughout that time,’ Walker told investigators.
‘And he popped over there once before while I was there like a couple months ago. So that’s what I thought was goin’ on.’
The report notes that Walker’s reference to the ‘guy’ showing up at the apartment months prior corresponds to the same time frame when Glover was spotted at Taylor’s home.
He also told investigators he was a licensed carrier but had never fired his gun ‘outside of a range’.
After hearing the ‘loud boom at the door’, Walker said he asked who was there and did not get a response.
He said Breonna then tried asking by screaming, ‘who is it?’ “Loud at the top of her lungs”‘, but they still did not get an answer.
Walker then described walking over to the breached door and firing one gun shot.
Police photos and video reveal Taylor’s bullet-riddled apartment in the aftermath of the fatal raid
Included in Wednesday’s document dump were photos and videos that show the aftermath of the raid that left Taylor dead.
Investigators say that police fired 32 rounds during the raid, based on a review of the bullets remaining in the magazines of the four officers who fired.
Photos also show a shattered sliding door, displaying the evidence of the alleged wild shots fired through that door by Detective Brett Hankinson
An evidence marking shows where a bullet penetrated a pantry inside the apartment
A discarded battering ram is seen outside of Taylor’s apartment following the March 13 raid
Walker claimed he only fired once as a ‘warning shot’ towards the ground, but this could not be confirmed by a review of his Glock 9mm’s magazine, which only had a few rounds remaining.
He told investigators that he had previously used the gun at a firing range and left the magazine partially empty.
Photos from the scene show the bullet-riddled aftermath inside the apartment, with bullet holes in the walls and shell casings strewn inside and outside the front door.
Photos also show a shattered sliding door, displaying the evidence of the alleged wild shots fired through that door by Detective Brett Hankinson, who was fired from the LMPD in June and charged with wanton endangerment last month.
A termination memo released on Wednesday accused Hankinson of ‘blindly firing’ 10 rounds through the sliding glass door without being able to see who was on the other side.
Three of those rounds went though the rear wall of Taylor’s apartment into the neighboring unit, which was occupied, resulting in the wanton endangerment charges against Hankinson.