Update (September 30, 2020): Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron revealed on Tuesday that he never recommended murder charges against the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor on March 13, according to CBS News.
During a press conference last week, Cameron said the grand jury handed down no charges in connection with Taylor's death, as Blavity previously reported. Instead, former officer Brett Hankison was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment of Taylor’s neighbors.
"Ultimately our judgment is that the charge that we could prove at trial beyond a reasonable doubt was for wanton endangerment against Mr. Hankison," Cameron told WDRB-TV.
Cameron said despite public outcry that Taylor’s family didn’t receive justice, the facts came out on top.
"I cannot fashion the facts in such a way to meet a narrative that in many ways had already been put out there before the facts had been put out there," he said.
Since the announcement of charges against Hankison, people have demanded Cameron to release the transcript of the grand jury recording. While he has agreed to release the transcript, he has requested an extension.
"The grand jury is meant to be a secretive body. It’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen,” he said.
According to NBC News, Cameron filed a motion with the court, indicating that his office needs a week to "redact personal identifiers of any named person, and to redact both names and personal identifiers of any private citizen.”
"The Grand Jury audio recording is more than 20 hours long, and our office filed a motion to request additional time, if the court permits it, to redact personally identifiable information of witnesses, including addresses and phone numbers," a spokesperson with Cameron’s office said in a statement.
On Monday, an unidentified juror requested a judge to allow fellow jurors to give up their confidential status to discuss Taylor’s case, the Courier-Journal reports.
The juror alleges that Cameron used them "as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility for those decisions.”
Original (September 29, 2020): Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced he will release all grand jury records in the Breonna Taylor case on Wednesday after a member of the grand jury filed a motion bashing him for misleading them during the two-day proceeding, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
"The grand jury is meant to be a secretive body. It’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen," he said in a statement late on Monday.
???? BREAKING: KY Attorney General Daniel Cameron says he *will* release grand jury recording in #BreonnaTaylor case on Wednesday.
Here’s his full statement: pic.twitter.com/T2XiClvbYY
— Blayne Alexander (@ReporterBlayne) September 29, 2020
Since Cameron revealed that no charges would be filed against either of the officers who shot Taylor last week, a flurry of information, and bodycam videos, have been released that threw much of what he told the public into question.
In an extremely rare situation on Monday, a member of the grand jury filed a motion demanding Cameron release the full grand jury file, writing through a lawyer that Cameron not only misled the public but also left out critical information during his presentation to the grand jury last week. A judge ordered Cameron release the transcripts per CNN.
During a press conference last Wednesday, Cameron largely shifted blame for the lack of charges against Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove on to the grand jury, telling reporters that he presented all the facts and members of the grand jury decided against any charges.
But an unnamed member of that jury is now saying that is not true, writing in the motion that Cameron was using them "as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility for those decisions."
The motion asks for a transcript and recording of the grand jury proceeding to be released, and for all jurors to be given the right to speak openly about the case.
One of the key sections of the groundbreaking motion demands a judge allow members of the grand jury to also discuss "any potential charges and defendants presented or not presented."
"The full story and absolute truth of how this matter was handled from beginning to end is now an issue of great public interest and has become a large part of the discussion of public trust throughout the country. The public interest spreads across the entire commonwealth when the highest law enforcement official fails to answer questions and instead refers to the grand jury making the decisions," the unnamed grand jury member said through a lawyer.
"[Cameron] chose wisely in his speech. Now he has another choice in his response. Choose truth. Choose justice. Together Kentucky," the motion said.
One of the main issues in Cameron's statement that even lawyers for Taylor's family honed in on are what charges the Kentucky Attorney General brought to the grand jury.
Cameron repeatedly said the grand jury "agreed" that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in killing Taylor because her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker may have fired a warning shot that night.
Cameron faced criticism last week when he refused to say what charges were suggested to the grand jury and said murder or homicide charges would not fit what happened.
But in his statement on Monday, he changed his story.
"The only charge recommended (to the grand jury) was wanton endangerment," Cameron admitted in his statement, highlighting a complaint Taylor's family had that no charges were ever presented to the grand jury related to Taylor's death.
The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that during a press conference on Friday, attorney Lonita Baker bashed Cameron for being coy about what he actually told the grand jury.
"What we also want is for you to quit dodging the question. You were asked at the press conference (Wednesday): Did you make a recommendation. You refused to answer. Answer the question: Did you even present any charges regarding Breonna Taylor to the grand jury?" Baker said.
The fight over the grand jury recording coincided with the release of even more information from the investigative case file on what happened the night of March 13.
According to documents and audio files leaked to VICE News, multiple police officers and SWAT team members told internal investigators that when they arrived at Taylor's apartment after the shooting, there were a bevy of problems.
Some officers told investigators they raised concerns about the raid even before the officers left.
Many of the people who were involved in the raid and the shooting, including Cosgrove and ex-detective Brett Hankinson, were freely roaming around the crime scene, a direct violation of Louisville Metro Police Department rules.
In addition to those concerns, SWAT team members who reviewed the case file after the shooting questioned why the raid was conducted at all, honing in on something many outsiders have believed to be the true cause of the raid: money.
LMPD SWAT Lieutenant Massey on Breonna Taylor raid: “If no one’s got to die, they don’t have to die. Like, $14,000 isn’t worth it. Any amount of dope’s not worth it either. As we debriefed and kinda looked over, it was just – it was just an egregious act.”
— Roberto Aram Ferdman (@robferdman) September 28, 2020
When interviewed by members of the department’s Public Integrity Unit after the raid, LMPD SWAT Lieutenant Massey bashed the conduct of Cosgrove, Mattingly and others who seemingly conducted the raid on Taylor's home without higher approval and with little evidence.
The officers involved in the initial raid also lied to the SWAT team that arrived after, telling them that someone inside Taylor's apartment was using an automatic weapon. It was only after looking at the shattered glass in Taylor's home that the SWAT team realized all of the shooting was from police outside.
"If no one’s got to die, they don’t have to die. Like, $14,000 isn’t worth it. Any amount of dope’s not worth it either. As we debriefed and kinda looked over, it was just – it was just an egregious act,” Massey said.
"We just got the feeling that night that, you know, um, something really bad happened. Human life is more important than any amount of dope," he added in the audio clip.
