Judge’s logic-defying order brands Breonna Taylor’s protector her killer

Demonstrators and members of the Black Womens Collective gather around the Breonna Taylor memorial at Jefferson Square Park on Oct. 3, 2020 in Louisville. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images.)

It is disappointing that a Kentucky federal judge dismissed felony charges against two former police officers charged in the death of Breonna Taylor during a 2020 raid.

But the decision by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson III to place blame for the 26-year-old emergency-room technician’s death squarely on boyfriend Kenneth Walker III defies logic. And it reinforces the difficulty of holding police accountable, even when one detective has already pleaded guilty to lies and coverups.

Walker shot once from his legally owned gun as Louisville police burst through Taylor’s apartment door unannounced on March 13 at 12:45 a.m. Police returned fire 32 times, with several bullets hitting Taylor. Her death added fuel to international protests over police killings that summer.

Walker’s decision to shoot is “a superseding cause” of her death, the judge said. “There is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death.”

The link appears obvious: If officers had not lied that a drug dealer lived there, the shooting would not have happened. “If they had just knocked on the door and said, ‘It’s the police,’ we would have opened the door,” Walker said in an Instagram post on the ruling.

Also, in a legal system that endorses “stand-your-ground” laws, why is Walker criticized for exercising his right to self-defense? Why single him out when prosecutors dropped charges against him for wounding an officer in the leg, and the city of Louisville reached a $2 million settlement with him over police misconduct?

Will the next argument be that Taylor is responsible for her own death, just for being asleep in her bed when police showed up?

Federal prosecutors intend to appeal the judge’s ruling, according to Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer. “The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient,” she said in a statement. “The appeal will extend the life of the case but as we’ve always maintained, we will continue to fight until we get full justice.”

What this means right now is that former Louisville Police Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany, who handled the warrant but were not at the shooting, face only misdemeanor charges that could end with fines. Jaynes and Meany were charged with depriving Taylor of her constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches. Simpson, a senior judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said the facts did not justify the felony charge.

Jaynes is still charged with conspiring with another detective to cover up the false warrant and of falsifying a document to mislead investigators. Meany is still charged with making a false statement to FBI investigators.

This tragedy began with police efforts to arrest Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, DeMarcus Glover, for drug-dealing. He was arrested the night of the raid at another location.

Former detective Kelly Goodlett pleaded guilty in federal court to lying on the warrant for Taylor’s apartment by saying it was Glover’s primary address and that they had documented that he kept drugs and cash there. Officers also lied about the need for the more aggressive “no-knock” warrant, said Goodlett, expected to be sentenced in April.

Two officers who did the actual shooting in the apartment have not been charged. A grand jury did not indict them, after then-Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron did not recommend charges . Another officer who shot 10 bullets into the apartment building, endangering other residents, was acquitted in a state trial and won a mistrial in federal court. He is expected to be retried in October.

“You wonder, where’s the accountability?” Sadiqa Reynolds, a Louisville activist and attorney told WHAS11 after the judge’s ruling. “What is in place to prevent an officer from making up a warrant and causing someone’s death? What do we do?”

Louisville government officials have taken some responsibility, at least. A $12 million settlement of a wrongful-death lawsuit included promises of improved crisis intervention, more citizen oversight, and an “early warning” system for troubled officers.

The city also is winding down negotiations over a federal consent decree that would place a judge in charge of overseeing overdue police reforms in 36 areas of operation, including training, administration, community response and employee management.

A two-year investigation into the department exposed violations of residents’ constitutional rights: illegal stops, detentions and arrests; excessive force with neck restraints, stun guns and dog bites; inadequate attention to sexual assault and domestic-violence cases; yelling and name-calling, which escalate conflicts. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the report “an affront to the people of Louisville who deserve better.”

Kenneth Walker also deserves better.

While it is well within the judge’s power and expertise to determine whether police actions were felonies, it’s unfair to brand Walker as Taylor’s killer when he tried to be her protector.

Without his eyewitness testimony, Breonna Taylor would not be remembered as a promising life unfairly ended but written off as another drug-dealing casualty.

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