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 home on a separate warrant.
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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 Louisville Courier Journal of the USA TODAY Network.
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 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.
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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" that he 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.
Walker: '(An officer) asked me, ‘Were you hit by any bullets?’ I said no. He said, ‘That’s unfortunate.’'
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.
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.
Describing what took place when he left the apartment, Walker tells investigators he was told that he was going to jail for the rest of his life and that a dog was going to be let loose on him.
“(An officer) asked me, ‘Were you hit by any bullets?’ I said no. He said, ‘That’s unfortunate,’” Walker adds.
Sgt. Chad Tinnell, from LMPD’s Public Integrity Unit, responds: “That’s not appropriate.”
Hankison ‘was a little bit worked up’
Before police used a battering ram to enter Taylor’s apartment, Mattingly describes how a “belligerent” man upstairs came outside and started yelling at officers.
“He was saying something about, ‘leave that girl alone’ or something like that,” Mattingly said.
Hankison yelled back at the man, Mattingly said, while he tried to stay focused on the door. Mattingly was the officer knocking on Taylor’s door.
“I remember Brett extending his gun, saying ‘Get back in your apartment, get back in your apartment,’” Mattingly said.
Hankison “was a little bit worked up,” Mattingly said, as Hankison and the neighbor continued to yell at each other.
“I remember looking at Brett saying, ‘Brett relax, Brett just relax, relax,’” Mattingly said. “Because, you know, while you got to pay attention to him, that's not your focus.”
Interim Police Chief Robert Schroeder fired Hankison in June for his actions at Taylor’s apartment.
Schroeder wrote in a letter to Hankison that he showed "extreme indifference to the value of human life" and his use of deadly force was improper because he failed to verify it was directed against someone who posed an immediate threat.
Schroeder accuses Hankison of "blindly" firing 10 rounds into Taylor's apartment and the one next door.
"I find your conduct a shock to the conscience," Schroeder repeated. "I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion."
Aguiar and Baker have argued that Hankison's "reckless, willful and unjustified deadly force" led to "at least one of the fatal shots."
Aguiar has previously written that in court documents that "following the initial flurry of gunshots, witnesses state that an officer (presumably Hankison) yelled 'reload' and then proceeded to fire more into Breonna’s home."
Photos of Taylor's apartment provided by Aguiar show the sliding glass patio door boarded up from the outside. But inside, shards of glass can be seen on the apartment's carpeted floor, and bullet holes riddle the curtains.
The department has not publicly released any ballistics reports from Taylor's death or said which officers fired the fatal shot or shots, or even if all three fired shots that hit Taylor.
No officers have been criminally charged for Taylor's death.
Follow reporters Tessa Duvall and Darcy Costello on Twitter: @TessaDuvall; @dctello
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