LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville Metro Police serving the no-knock search warrant at Breonna Taylor's apartment the night she died were told her home was a "soft target" with minimal threats, and that the 26-year-old ER technician was likely home alone, newly released police interviews reveal.
"They said they did not believe she had children or animals, but they weren't sure," Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly told investigators in a recorded interview almost two weeks after the shooting. "Said she should be there alone because they knew where their target was."
Police surveillance conducted the same night officers served the warrant March 13 showed little activity in the apartment, Mattingly said. The only light was the glow of the TV in her bedroom.
Mattingly's comments that police "knew where their target was" appear to be a reference to Jamarcus Glover, one of the main targets in the larger narcotics investigation. Glover, 30, was arrested the same night Taylor died after police searched his Elliott Avenue home on a separate warrant.
More: Breonna Taylor family's lawyers: Police lied about search time, acted on 'stale' intelligence
Glover and Taylor had previously dated years earlier, and maintained a "passive" friendship, according to Sam Aguiar, an attorney for Taylor's family. Mattingly said police believe Taylor may have held drugs and money for Glover.
Aguiar and co-counsel Lonita Baker have insisted for months that police did not need to forcibly enter Taylor's apartment because they knew Glover was not there. Mattingly's comments echo that.
Rob Eggert, the attorney for Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, obtained the full Public Integrity Unit interviews with Mattingly and Walker and provided copies to The Courier Journal.
Before first being reported by NBC News Thursday morning, only parts of the recordings had been publicly released. Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine had played pieces of Walker's and Mattingly's interviews at a May 22 news conference, but Louisville police have refused to release the full recordings.
The Public Integrity Unit interviewed Mattingly for just over 40 minutes on March 25.
Mattingly is one of three officers who shot his weapon at Taylor's apartment, along with officers Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison. Hankison has since been fired, while Mattingly and Cosgrove remain on administrative reassignment.
Court records show that police obtained a search warrant with a no-knock clause for Taylor's apartment, but Mattingly said police repeatedly knocked and announced their presence. He was unsure why it was signed as a no-knock, but they were then told to knock.
"Our intent was to give her plenty of time to come to the door because they said she was probably there alone," Mattingly said.
Read this: Was a 'no-knock' warrant justified to search Breonna Taylor's home? Several experts say no
He says they waited "more than enough time for the average person or even a disabled person to get to the door" before deciding to force entry.
When police entered, Taylor's boyfriend, Walker, fired one shot — which he described as a "warning," fired because he thought officers were intruders — and struck Mattingly in the leg. Mattingly, Cosgrove and Hankison returned fire.
Taylor was shot and killed in her hallway.
During Walker's interview at 3:40 a.m. March 13 with Public Integrity Unit investigators, he insists that he and Taylor didn't know it was police knocking at the door. That would have changed the "whole situation," he tells investigators.
"The only reason I even had the gun out (was) because we didn't know who it was. If we knew who it was, that would have never happened," Walker said.
Walker also tells police that he was told after the shooting that there was a "misunderstanding."
He describes that the police car he was being transported in pulled into a parking lot and someone in an unmarked SUV came to his window and asked his name.
"The first thing I said to him was, was she alive? He was like, 'Well, we'll talk about that when you get to where you're going,'" Walker tells investigators. "He was like, 'I just want to let you know right now that all of this was a — they had a — misunderstanding.'"
"To me, it seemed like they realized that they were at the wrong place," Walker says.
Also: Breonna Taylor shooting: New video shows Kenneth Walker's arrest as police draw weapons
Search warrants signed by Circuit Judge Mary Shaw from March 12 show that police were at the right home. A no-knock warrant, one of five she signed that night, includes Taylor's address and lists her name.
However, the full documents reflect she was not the main target of the investigation.
Later, Walker brings it up again, after asking if the police officer who was shot is OK: "Why did they even come there? … And why did he say to me that there was a misunderstanding?"
Investigators tell him they don't know.
"That's some new information for us as well, so that's what we're trying to learn," one LMPD officer responds.
This story will be updated.
Reach Tessa Duvall at tduvall@courier-journal.com and 502-582-4059. Twitter: @TessaDuvall. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: https://ift.tt/2Z9C9oV.
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